
Gass- 
Book_ 



iS 



SKETCHES 



ENGLISH LITERATURE, 



FROM THE 



FOURTEENTH TO THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



CLARA LUCAS SALFOUR, 

AUTHOR OF 

'MORAL HEROISM," " WOMEN OF SCRIPTURE," "HAPPY EVENINGS," 

ETC. ETC. 



•• Thus Genius rose and set, at ordered times, 
And shot a day-spring into distant climes." — Cow per. 




iDON: 
LONGMAN, BROWN, GRfiEN, AND LONGMANS. 

1852. 




London : 

Spottibwoodes and Shaw, 

bifiw-streetJSquare. 



/ 



PREFACE. 



The following pages aim at presenting in a 
familiar and compendious form a general sketch 
of the progress of our English Literature since 
the revival of letters in Europe until our own time. 
Many voluminous and admirable works have 
treated this subject in its different departments at 
large. The general or the young reader, however, 
who is but just beginning to select from, and to feel 
an interest in, our standard literature; and the 
female reader who snatches from daily duties brief 
opportunities for reading, can scarcely be expected 
or induced to go at once to studies so comprehen- 
sive. To these, it is thought, a book would be 
useful that aims to lead them by a plain path to 
the sources of the stream of modern English lite- 
rature, and marks out to them its fertilising and 

A 2 



IV PREFACE. 

rapid course through the four last, and most im- 
portant, centuries. 

Considerable prominence has been given in 
these pages to the labours of poets. Because 
great poets not only give form, power, and beauty 
to a nation's language, but feed the secret springs 
that render its general literature copious and 
varied. 

The desire of the writer is to stimulate rather 
than to satisfy a love of reading, and a taste for 
the writings of our best authors ; and to point 
out names and events that have either constituted 
important literary eras in our land, or led to the 
mental advancement of the people. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Introduction - - - - - • 1 

CHAP. I. 

The Fourteenth Century. — Retrospect. — Italy : its 
Influence on England. — Wickliffe, Chaucer, Gower 9 

CHAP. H. 

The Art of Printing, its Professors and Patrons - 49 

CHAP. III. 

Female Education and Influence after the Introduc- 
tion of Printing. — Sketch of early Female Writers 65 

CHAP. IV. 

The Reformation, and the Literary Activity of its Era 76 

CHAP. V. 

The Bible and its Translators - - 92 

CHAP. VI. 

The Bible. — Its Literary Influence - - 100 

CHAP. VII. 

Spenser and Shakspeare, and their Poetic Contempo- 
raries - - - - - -113 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAP. VIII. 

Page 

Minor Poets between the Time of Shakspeare and 
Milton - - - - - - 132 

CHAP. IX. 

Science and its Martyrs - - * «- 144 

CHAP. X. 

Milton and his Literary Contemporaries - - 151 

CHAP. XI. 

Female Writers of the Seventeenth Century - 182 

CHAP. XII. 

Dryden and the Rise of Criticism in England. — 
French Influence. — Literary Patrons. — Origin and 
Progress of Periodicals. — De Foe, Addison, Steele 200 

CHAP. XIII. 

Mind and Matter : their Students and Expositors — 
Hon. Eobert Boyle, John Kay, John Locke, Cathe- 
rine Cockburne, and Sir Isaac Newton - - 213 

CHAP. XIV. 

Aspects of the Literature of the Eighteenth Century 
— Its leading Minds - - - - 225 

CHAP. XV. 

Eighteenth Century {continued). — Imaginative Writ- 
ings ---------- 275 



CONTENTS. vn 



CHAP. XVI. 



Page 



Female Writers of the last half of the Eighteenth 
Century, and the beginning of the present - 287 

CHAP. XVII. 

Modern Female Poets. — Mrs. Tighe — Mrs. Hemans 
— Miss Landon — Mrs. Joanna Baillie - - 311 

CHAP. XYIII. 

Illustrious youthful Poets. — Henry Kirke White — 
Robert Pollok — John Keats — Percy Bysshe Shelley 330 

CHAP. XIX. 

Poetical Controversies of the present Age. — Con- 
flicting Theories. — Lake School. — Wordsworth, 
Coleridge, Southey, Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, 
Campbell, and Moore - 362 

CHAP. XX. 

Literature among the People. — Poets and Prose 
Writers of the Poor. — Aspects of Literature in the 
present Time, — Literary Associations. — Thoughts 
on Reading - - - - - 3 85 



SKETCHES 

OF 

ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Theee is no sight that more powerfully carries 
back the thoughts to the olden time than an old 
library. I do not mean merely an old building, 
nor a collection of old books, — not a show-place, 
nor an elaborate modern antique, — but a veritable 
library of the olden time. There is a sight of 
this kind at the little town cf Wimborne, in Dor- 
setshire. The old Minster of that place, bearing 
witness to the architectural skill and taste both of 
the Saxon and the Norman era, has much to de- 
light the antiquarian in its structure, its ornaments, 
its traces of successive enlargements, marked by 
obvious changes of style, its monuments, and its 
historical associations. But nothing to my mind 
was so interesting as a chamber in one of the 



2 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

towers that was called "The Library." The 
room was square and well proportioned, though 
by no means large ; two windows, of a sort of 
casement form, more suited to an old house than 
a church tower, and evidently very much more 
modern than the walls, admitted plenty of light ; 
and round the three other sides of the room were 
rough-looking massive shelves, containing tar- 
nished dilapidated books of all sorts, sizes, and 
colours, in clumsy but strong bindings, now sadly 
tattered, and in many cases dropping to pieces 
with age. Here were black-letter tomes — still 
older beautifully written manuscripts ; specimens 
of early printing in the Roman character, that so 
soon triumphed over the black letter ; a fine old 
polyglott Bible, in many volumes ; and separate 
copies of the Scriptures — some in the original 
tongues, and some Latin, and early English, trans- 
lations. 

The greatest peculiarity, however, was not the 
books, but the way they were secured. An iron 
rod went along the edge of each shelf, and was 
fastened at the end by a huge padlock. Each 
book had a chain screwed on to one of the covers 
(as we often see the Bible fastened to the desk in 
very old churches), and at the other end of the 
chain was a ring that ran on the locked iron rod. 
For the convenience of reading any of these vene- 
rable volumes thus guarded from removal, there 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

was a portable desk and stool, which the reader 
could bring near any shelf, and, sitting sufficiently 
close for the chained book to rest upon the desk, 
he could peruse the volume there, and there only. 

Nothing could appear more strange than the 
rusty iron chains hanging so thickly from the 
shelves — it seemed the prison rather than the 
home of the books. And this in olden times was 
the town library ! It is probable that Wimborne 
was honoured above most towns of its size, not 
only by having its noble Minster, but by its pos- 
sessing a public library of any kind. It is true 
that even from the early part of the sixteenth 
century it had a great advantage in its admirable 
school, which was founded by the illustrious Mar- 
garet Beaufort, the mother of Henry VIL, a woman 
who was deservedly called "the Mother of the Stu- 
dents of the Universities." And the probability 
is, that the townspeople, as books slowly increased, 
were tolerably competent to understand, and likely 
to value them. 

There is a fine copy of Sir Walter Raleigh's 
" History of the World " in this old library, and 
local tradition attaches an interesting anecdote to 
this book. It is said the poet Prior used to read 
here often ; and once when poring over the book in 
question on a winter evening, he fell asleep, and 
the candle, falling from the tin sconce of the desk 
upon the middle of the open book, burned slowly 

B 2 



4 SKETCHES OP ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

a round hole through it may be a hundred pages, 
rather more than less. The smoke of the smoulder- 
ing paper aroused the weary student. A hand 
would have been sufficient to cover the damage 
and put out the fire, — and probably in this way 
it was extinguished. We may imagine, however, 
the dismay at the mischief done to a book, costly 
even now, but then of much higher monetary 
value. The pains taken to remedy the defect 
marks the value in which the book was held. 
Pieces of writing paper, about the size of half-a- 
crown, are very neatly pasted into the holes, and 
the words needed to supply the sense are tran- 
scribed from the memory, and, it is said, in the 
handwriting of Prior. 

How strangely does this old library, with its 
rusty drapery of iron chains, hanging in dismal 
festoons from the shelves, contrast with the public 
libraries of the present time. And yet more re- 
markable, as a sign of intellectual progress, is the 
difference now in the price of books of the highest 
intrinsic value and importance. The chains are 
broken ; the illustrious prisoners, so long fettered 
and kept from intercourse with the people, are 
free. They have spread over the land and multi- 
plied, and found a welcome with high and low, 
rich and poor — 

" Their thoughts in many a memory, 
Their home in many a heart." 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

The danger to the reader in the present time, — 
the young reader more particularly, — does not 
arise from scarcity, but repletion. Copious, yet 
desultory, reading, without plan or system, is the 
error of the inexperienced in our day. Many 
love to linger near the stream of knowledge, vet 
care not to trace its course, and to note its fer- 
tilising progress : they have no systematic and con- 
secutive notion of the rise and progress of modern 
literature. Many general readers, who have the 
most accurate chronological knowledge in reference 
to kings and queens, have but a confused notion 
of the eras that have occurred in literature, and 
their effects, not merely on the few, but on the 
many. A clear, plain, untechnical record and 
analysis of literature would be more a history 
of the peoples of the earth, their progress, their 
revolutions, and their decline, than any thing that 
is ordinarily dignified with the name of history : 
for, as it is thought that really governs the world, 
the greatest thinkers have been ultimately the 
mightiest rulers, and the noblest conquerors. 
Such a work, however, would not only demand 
universal knowledge and a philosophical mind in 
the writer, but time and study from the reader ; 
conditions not often possessed by either. It oc- 
curred to me, however, in the old library at 
Wimborne Minster that a series of plain con- 
secutive sketches, however rapid and panoramic, 

B 3 



6 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

of our literature, would be useful to general and 
to young readers, by collecting information for 
them which they would have had to seek from 
many varied sources, and giving them a clear and 
distinct, even if limited, view of the progress of 
mind in their own land from the middle of the 
fourteenth century. 

It is not enough that w T e read the works of 
great men of former ages; it is necessary to our 
full appreciation and enjoyment of their writings 
that we know something of the times in which 
they lived, and of the books that preceded theirs. 
It will help us to a humbler view of our present 
attainments, and a fitter sense of our present 
responsibilities, when we behold the triumphs of 
mind, amid the difficulties of past ages, and what 
treasures of thought our ancestors bequeathed 
to us. 

It will be an instructive, and I would hope in- 
teresting, part of this view taken of the progress 
of our literature, that the contributions from the 
mind of woman to the cause of human improve- 
ment are not left out, or slurred over, in these 
sketches. Those contributions prior to the last 
century, it will be found, were few in number, and 
not often first-rate in quality. But when we re- 
member the comparatively limited education that 
woman has received, the paramount and ever- 
recurring duties of domestic life, and, more than 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

all, the law of opinion that operated to restrict 
her mental efforts, as much as her literary ac- 
quirements, the wonder is, not that woman in 
former ages contributed so little to our literature, 
but that she should have ventured to contribute 
at all. 

Another thought that was suggested to me by 
the sight of the old library of chained books at 
Wimborne I venture to lay before my reader : — 
When the student had to go to his books, carrying 
desk and seat to the shelf where they were fast- 
ened, did he not value them all the more for the 
hinderances that impeded his easy enjoyment of 
their contents ? Granted that the careless many 
neither could or would invade and share that 
prison, yet with what zest the studious few would 
pore over those manacled volumes, careless of 
the constrained attitude, the cold, the gloom, and 
the many discomforts that must then have con- 
demned every student, whatever his station, to 
a " pursuit of knowledge under difficulties." Do 
we by our warm fire-sides, — in comfortable easy 
chairs, — books in abundance coming like a full 
tide into our dwellings, — do we read as carefully 
as students then read? Have we gained a full 
knowledge of the recorded thoughts of any of our 
great writers ? Have we not skimmed and dipped, 
rather than read and reflected ? and, while wisdom 
and expediency would both subscribe to Lord 

B 4 



8 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Bacon's maxim, " Some books are to be tasted, 
others to be swallowed, and some few to be 
chewed and digested," yet, in our hasty examining, 
have we rightly discriminated as to the books we 
should taste, and those we should digest ? 

Responsibility and privilege are so linked to- 
gether that none can be guiltless in separating 
them. If we have more ample means of know- 
ledge than our ancestors, woe be to us if we have 
not also, as the result, more earnestness and more 
wisdom ! 



THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. — RETROSPECT. ITALY : ITS 

INFLUENCE ON ENGLAND, — WICKLIFFE, CHAUCER, 
GOWER. 

The words " transition age " have passed into a 
current and popular phrase, often liable, from 
its very convenience, to be misapplied. We use 
the term frequently to describe changes of 
outward manifestation, rather than changes in 
the characteristics of a period. The fourteenth 
century may be pre-eminently called a transition 
age, because its changes have a distinctive cha- 
racter, as marking the transition from the primitive 
to the modern state of Europe. It was not the 
actions but the thoughts of that time that were 
memorable. There was strife, and struggle, and 
clamour every where, without effecting much 
immediately for man. Meanwhile a few illus- 
trious thinkers were arising in the South of 
Europe, and lightening the darkness that had so 
long spread over the nations. 

The important facts of the preceding ages of 
the Christian era may be comprised in a rapid 
summary : The decline of the Koman power in 



10 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the fifth century ; the incursions, conquests, 
and final establishment of independent states by 
peoples of North and Central Europe, who had 
been called by one contemptuous phrase, " Bar- 
barians," by the polished and luxurious Romans ; 
the establishment of a Christian Church, not, as 
in the earlier ages, as a spiritual principle of 
union to be individually received by faith, but 
as a political institution of supreme authority ; 
the feudal system ; the institution of chivalry ; 
and, lastly, the crusades. Of these, M. Guizot 
says with equal brevity and force, " They were 
the first European event Before the crusades 
the different countries of Europe had never been 
simultaneously moved by the same cause, or 
actuated by the same sentiment. Europe as a 
whole did not exist. The crusades animated all 
Christian Europe. France supplied the greater 
portion of the first crusading army ; but Germans, 
Italians, Spaniards, and English, were also found 
in its ranks. In the second and third crusades 
the whole of Christendom was engaged. Nothing 
like it had ever been seen before. 

" This was not all : — Although the crusades 
were an European event, they were also a national 
event in each separate country; all classes were 
animated by the same impression, yielded to the 
same idea, and abandoned themselves to the same 
influence, Kings, nobles, priests, citizens, and 



RETROSPECT. 1 1 

the rural population, all took the same part, the 
same interest, in the crusades. The moral unity 
of nations was exhibited, a fact as new as that of 
European unity." 

Each of these facts left its impress on the 
national mind, and influenced our early literature, 
whose course we may trace — first, from rude oral 
metrical compositions of warlike tribes — odes, 
battle songs, wild and fabulous traditions, — to 
the written literature of the cloister, treatises, 
homilies, expositions, doctrinal controversies, le- 
gends of martyrs, lives of saints, traditions of 
miracles — the true and the false, the valuable 
and the worthless strangely mingled. The wis- 
dom and the reasoning contained in the earlier 
writings of the Fathers were intended evidently 
for the learned and the initiated, while the 
spiritual and mental influence gained over the 
many was through the passion of fear and the 
natural appetite for the wonderful. Hence the 
power and the popularity of wild and degrading 
superstitions. 

The feudal institution, by its injustice and 
oppression, gave rise to chivalry as its pro- 
fessed antagonist ; though it may be questioned 
whether it was not its ally, even while uttering 
liberal promises of redress of grievances, pro- 
tection of the weak, and a particular deference 
to woman. If most of this was mere profession, 



12 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

yet external manners were improved ; politeness 
became a principle ; and poetry of a tender and 
complimentary kind began to be uttered in the 
lays of the troubadours : the mental influence of 
woman as a judge of such poetry was conceded — 
a far higher tribute this than that which poets 
had, time immemorial, paid to her mere external 
beauty as an inspirer of their muse. 

Then the crusades, by bringing the natives 
of various countries into association, must have 
enlarged the sympathies and increased the know- 
ledge of all. And the Eastern land they visited, 
besides giving that kind of local corroboration to 
Christian belief which is so influential with the 
general mind, supplied also a store of the graceful 
and gorgeous fancies of oriental literature, to be 
transplanted from the East to the West. Hence 
came the stories of enchantment and of genii that 
operated as a pleasing variation of the gloomier 
superstitions of witchcraft and demonology. 

Meanwhile in our own land during these times 
we had had an historian, a statesman, and a 
conqueror, each of whom had left traces on 
the language, the literature, the land, and the 
manners of the nation. The Venerable Bede had 
given an ecclesiastical history that not only chro- 
nicled the darkest period of the past, but was 
likely in better times to found a taste for histo- 
rical inquiry. The great Alfred introduced, or 
at all events more regularly systematised law, 



RETROSPECT. 13 

education, and division of land. His legal code, 
and foundation of the University of Oxford, 
claim the gratitude of all posterity. The Xor- 
man William brought the comparative refine- 
ment of a more temperate and polished people 
to compensate ultimately for his conquest, and to 
extenuate the memory of his oppression. He 
was not content, however, with conquering our 
country ; he strove to annihilate its language. 
Xorrnan-French was the language of politeness, 
of law, and of education ; and for three hundred 
years the common Saxon, the vernacular language 
of the country, was prohibited from being taught 
in the schools. Hence, during that long period, 
there was positively nothing done towards laying 
the basis of a national literature. There had been 
stately ceremonial, gorgeous pageants, heroic or 
mock-heroic chivalry, courtly minstrelsy, enthu- 
siastic superstition, rude pantomimic shows ; still 
the mind, the national mind, slumbered. 

At the latter part of the thirteenth century 
there was great darkness over the whole of 
Europe; but we from our insular position, and from 
our being a conquered country, ruled by foreign 
princes, were less advanced in education and 
literature than either France or Italy. It is memo- 
rable, however, that then in all countries, various 
enthusiasms had declined. Chivalry had become 
a name, an order, but it was not a vital reality. 
The crusades had ceased, and a reaction in which 



14 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

people wondered at the excitement of the past 
followed. Some institutions of the church, which 
had subsisted for ages, were keenly felt as an 
oppression even by those whose tongues were 
silent. Monachism had continued from the sixth 
century ; but now, while its hold was strong on 
the fears of the people, its influence on their 
affections had declined. Thought was moving, but 
yet very slowly, for ignorance checked its progress. 
A greater event for Europe than any battle 
however glorious, or the reign of any sovereign 
however splendid, was the birth of the poet 
Dante, the illustrious Florentine, in 1265. This 
great man was born at a time when Italy was 
torn by contending factions, and when the church 
rather fomented than quieted the contest. He 
was completely mixed up in the politics of the 
time; his personal sorrows aggravating the sus- 
ceptibility of his temper. Very early in life he 
formed an enthusiastic attachment for Beatrice 
Portinari, whose early death cast a gloom over 
his mind from w T hich he never recovered. His 
subsequent marriage to Gemma Donati is as- 
serted, but on very slight grounds, to have been 
unhappy ; certain it is, his wife's family were of 
different opinions to himself on politics, and ulti- 
mately became his enemies. Equally fearless and 
melancholy, the great yet gloomy genius of Dante 
was destined to exert a mighty influence, not 
merely on Italy, but on Europe. 



ITALY. 15 

We shall best understand the effect of Dante's 
writings on his own immediate time if we put a 
supposititious case. Imagine a mighty poet of 
our own age writing a poem, that told us of the 
eternal destiny of great and well-known persons 
recently deceased ; that denounced their vices, and 
showed with terrible distinctness how 5 in the 
regions of punishment, they were being tormented ; 
that uttered, like an accusing angel, admonitions 
and threatening^ to the living ; that revealed to 
the awe-struck gaze the invisible world, and, 
instead of thronging it w r ith angels and demons, 
gave it a grand and terrible human interest by 
peopling it with well-known earthly beings. With 
all our freedom of the press, and our independence 
of thought, the man who ventured to do that even 
now, would be feared, hated, persecuted, We 
should forget the value of the lesson, and think 
only of the sternness of the teacher. In the 
thirteenth century and the beginning of the 
fourteenth, when popes and potentates ruled over 
mind and body, we may feebly imagine the elec- 
tric power of the voice that seemed to come up 
from the bottomless pit, charged with the wailings 
of the sad, and the warnings of the tortured. 
Hitherto poets had sung love strains and w r ar 
songs, mingling such gentle satire as stimulated, 
rather than offended. jSTow, there Avas a bard 
with another message. As a piece of merely hu- 
man composition and secular writing, there had 



16 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

been nothing presented to the world so original, 
daring, and awful, as the Divina Comedia (or 
the epic of the Divine Justice) of Dante. 

It is impossible in a sketch to give any idea of 
a work that attempts to describe the unseen world 
with awful minuteness. In accordance with the 
theology of the time he describes three states: 
Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Every image that 
can fill up the terrible is used to describe the state 
of the lost. 

The inscription on the gates of hell prepares the 
mind for the horrible scenes he describes in its 
various gradations of woe: — 

" Through me you pass into the city of woe : 
Through me you pass into eternal pain : 
Through me among the people lost for aye. 
Justice the founder of my fabric moved : 
To rear me was the task of power divine, 
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. 
Before me things create were none, save things 
Eternal, and eternal I endure : 

AlX HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE." 

It was not to be expected that this great 
man, and sublime genius., so beyond his age, 
would escape persecution. He was condemned to 
exile, and sentenced to be burnt alive if he re- 
turned to Florence. He never did return, but 
wandered heart-broken for many years in different 
lands. He says most affectingly, " It pleased the 
citizens of the fairest and most renowned daughter 



ITALY. 17 

of Rome — Florence — to cast me out of her most 
sweet bosom, where I was born and bred, and 
passed half of the life of man ; and in which, with 
her good leave, I still desire w T ith all my heart 
to repose my weary spirit, and finish the days 
allotted me : and so I have wandered in almost 
every place to which our language extends, a 
stranger, almost a beggar, exposing, against my 
will, the wounds given me by fortune, too often 
unjustly imputed to the sufferer's fault. Truly, 
I have been a vessel without sail, and without 
rudder, driven about upon different shores by the 
dry wind that springs of dolorous poverty ; and 
hence have I appeared vile in the eyes of many." 

Subsequently, he might have returned to his 
beloved Florence, if he would have compromised 
his principles. 

" No, father," he writes to a friendly eccle- 
siastic who had communicated the offer, " this is 
not the way that shall lead me back to my country. 
I shall return with hasty steps if you, or any 
other, can open a way that shall not derogate 
from the honour of Dante. But if by no such 
way Florence can be entered, then Florence I 
shall never enter. What ! shall I not every 
where enjoy the sight of the sun and stars? and 
may I not contemplate, in every corner of the 
earth under the canopy of heaven, consoling and 
delightful truth, without first rendering myself 

c 



18 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

inglorious, nay infamous, to the people and re- 
public of Florence ? Bread, I hope, will not fail 
me," 

Yet bread, it is said, did fail him. Poverty, 
nay worse, dependence, was his mournful lot. 
Even after his death (1321) his persecutors were 
not appeased, for his thoughts yet lived — were 
immortal. The pope held that his w T ork, " De 
Monorchia? struck at the root of priestly power, 
and it was ordered to be burnt. 

Dante set an admirable example to his contem- 
poraries and successors, by writing chiefly in his 
own vernacular language. To this cause, proba- 
bly, may be attributed the circumstance that even 
the common people of Florence knew somewhat 
of the scope and purport of his awful poem ; and 
that his thoughts, once set free, alighted like 
electric fire on many a mind, kindling up into a 
flame the smouldering embers of discontent, and 
stimulating inquiry. The example thus set was 
worthily followed. 

General readers — women more particularly — 
have a very indistinct idea of the service rendered 
to literature by the two great Italians who adorned 
the period immediately following the death of 
Dante — Petrarch and Boccaccio. They think of 
the first as merely a writer of elegant and romantic 
love sonnets to his Laura, and of the other as the 
author of some stories that he had better not have 



c^ 



ITALY. 19 

written. This is merely a one-sided view of the 
great men in question. They were reformers in 
literature. Ripe scholars, they despised the puer- 
ilities of monkish legends and the barbarous style 
in which they were written, — matter and manner 
each alike despicable. They resolved to lead the 
mind of the age back to the treasures of classic 
antiquity; and, for this purpose, commenced a 
diligent search after the dispersed writings of the 
philosophers, poets, and orators of Greece and 
Rome. Petrarch, in particular, sought to rouse 
his countrymen from their slumbers : it is said, 
w He never passed an old convent or monastery 
without searching its library, or knew of a friend 
travelling in those quarters where he supposed 
books to be concealed, without entreaties to pro- 
cure for him some classical manuscripts.' 5 And 
Boccaccio restored the study of the Greek lan- 
guage at a time when it was not onlv dead, but 
well nigh forgotten. 

These two great men arose just in time to save 
the literary treasures of antiquity from complete 
destruction. In which latter case, supposing they 
had excited a love of literature among their coun- 
trymen, they could not have gratified it, or have 
presented models of composition that would form 
the taste and correct the judgment of that and 
succeeding ages. 

The great cause of the destruction of the writ- 



20 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

ings of sages of antiquity during the dark ages, 
was the scarcity and dearness of materials to write 
upon. The parchment used by ancient writers 
was of so tough a texture that the writing; could 
be erased or peeled off; and this was often done 
to make room for some superstitious trash or 
monkish legend. It is said that ignorant and un- 
principled monks not only did this when they 
wanted to increase their stock of religious works, 
by original writings : but when they wanted to 
raise money, they used to sell the parchments 
on which Greek or Latin works were written, to 
the bookbinders and racket-makers. Several emi- 
nent works were rescued by scholars, that had 
been sold in this way ; others lay neglected and 
dropping to pieces in monasteries: so that Pe- 
trarch and Boccaccio engaged in a noble crusade 
when they set about rescuing the long-imprisoned 
and almost forgotten worthies of classic antiquity. 
No country can be said to have a national lite- 
rature so long as their writers choose a foreign 
language as the medium to convey their thoughts. 
We have seen that Dante wrote in his own native 
language, in opposition to the custom then pre- 
vailing, that regarded Latin as the language of the 
ecclesiastic and the scholar, and the Provencal as 
the language of poetry. Petrarch and Boccaccio, 
great scholars as they were, and writing admirably 
in other languages, yet composed in their verna- 



WICKL1FFE. 21 

cular those works on which their fame principally 
rests, though probably not those on which they 
most prided themselves. 

The revival of letters in the South of Europe, 
caused by the grand and marvellous poem of 
Dante, and by the subsequent literary labours and 
researches of Petrarch and Boccaccio, had its in- 
fluence, not only on Europe generally, but on our 
own island in particular. We also had great men 
in that ao;e, and were on the eve of great changes 
of opinion and great triumphs of mind. It was 
the age of Wickliffe the Reformer, and Chaucer 
the poet, also a reformer. The first — who was 
four years the senior — held that the people of 
England should have the Scriptures in their own 
tongue, as a means both of the highest spiritual 
and temporal good. Wickliffe had the honour to 
be the first man in Europe who questioned the 
spiritual supremacy of the Pope and the infalli- 
bility of the Church of Rome. He denied the real 
presence in the eucharist, the merit of monastic 
vows, maintained that the Scriptures were the sole 
rule of faith, and that the numerous ceremonies 
of the Church were hateful to true piety. He made 
a translation of the Scriptures, and upheld his 
opinions by most powerful and frequent preach- 
ing ; while his writings also were very voluminous, 
amounting to a hundred and fifty-six treatises, 
some in Latin, others in English. 

c 3 



22 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Wickliffe, strangely enough, — the prejudices 
of his age being considered, — died a natural death 
at his rectory of Lutterworth ; but after his de- 
cease Fleming, Bishop of London, having procured 
a papal bull from Martin V., exhumed and burnt 
his bones, throwing the ashes into a brook ; of 
which transaction Fuller nobly says : " This brook 
hath conveyed the ashes into Avon, Avon into 
Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into 
the main ocean ; and thus the ashes of Wickliffe 
are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dis- 
persed all the world over." 

Chaucer deserves to be venerated as a patriot 
quite as much as a poet, because he may be said 
to have re-conquered our language for us, when 
it had long lain under ban and interdict. Geoffrey 
Chaucer was born in 1328, seven years after the 
death of Dante, and twenty -four years after the 
birth of Petrarch. There has been a lengthened 
controversy as to the place of his birth ; but he 
himself — surely the best authority — asserts it to 
have been London. " The City of London, that 
is to me so dear and sweet, in which I was forth- 
grown : — and more kindly love have I to that 
place than to any other in earth (as every kindly 
creature hath full appetite to that place of his 
kindly ingendure)." The rank of his parents has 
equally been the subject of dispute. Four bio- 
graphers give different testimonies. Speght asserts 
his father was a vintner, Hearne that he was a 



CHAUCER. 16 

merchant, Leland that he was of noble stock, and 
Pitts that his father was a knight. Whether de- 
scended from peer or peasant, we may be sure he 
was icell born in the best sense — endowed with 
nature's richest gifts ; and it is certain also that 
his parents, whatever their rank, must have had 
competent means at their command, for he was 
liberally educated, and studied at both universities, 
— first at Cambridge, and after at Oxford. He 
travelled through many European countries, be- 
coming also a student of the Temple. He was ap- 
pointed to an office at court, at a time when gentle 
birth was much valued ; and he ultimately, by his 
marriage, became allied to royalty. Few men in 
any age could have so great an opportunity of be- 
holding human nature under various aspects. A 
scholar, a traveller, a courtier, — nature, education, 
and circumstances seem happily, in his case, to 
have combined to aid him. 

Four of the most illustrious women of the age 
pre-eminently delighted in the genius of Chau- 
cer : Philippa the Queen ; the Lady Margaret, 
Countess of Pembroke, daughter of the king ; 
and the Lady Blanche, heiress of Lancaster, who 
was the first wife of John of Gaunt ; and, at a 
later time, Anne of Bohemia, the first wife of the 
ill-fated Richard the Second. These were the 
patrons of his intellect. One who influenced his 
heart and stimulated his genius yet more was 
c 4 



24 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Philippa Picard de Rouet of Hainault, who, after 
eight or nine years' tender and respectful courtship, 
became his wife. It was Catherine, the sister of 
this Philippa, who ultimately became the third wife 
of John of Gaunt, and thus linked her illustrious 
poet brother-in-law with the royal family of Eng- 
land. 

In such a sphere of courtly splendour, mingling 
with the great and gay, — all of them foreigners, 
or of immediate foreign extraction, — and when it 
w r as the fashion to look upon the language and 
people of England as boorish, and incapable of 
refinement, — it was brave and patriotic of Chaucer 
to make the rugged national language the vehicle 
of his graphic and minute descriptions, his playful 
fancies, his tender and kindly thoughts. Chaucer 
w r ent on a political mission to Genoa; and while 
he was in Italy he visited Padua in 1373, and 
saw Petrarch, and brought from Italy many noble 
thoughts and pleasant fancies to weave into our 
literature, — in particular that narrative of the 
patience of woman, the story of Griselda, which 
his genius ultimately made so popular, despite the 
improbability and extravagance of the incidents, 
and the doubtful morality of the lesson it in- 
culcates. Chaucer takes pains to tell his reader 
whence he had the pathetic and beautiful narra- 
tive of unmerited wrongs and patient endurance. 
He said it was 



CHAUCER. 25 

" Learned at Padua of a worthy clerk — 
As proved by his words, and by his work, 
Francis Petrark, the laureate poete." 

This truly great poet had travelled without losing 
his own nationality: he was a scholar without 
pedantry, a courtier without servility. He used 
the powers of his mind and the advantages of 
education and travel to enrich his native lan- 
guage, and to lay the basis of a national litera- 
ture. Admirably has it been said, " Not a quip, 
not a jest, not a simile, not a new jingle of sounds 
and syllables, let the intrinsic value of the senti- 
ment of which they are the foliage and efflores- 
cence be ever so small, but in the act of origin- 
ating that quip, jest, simile, or jingle, Chaucer is 
struggling successfully with the tough element of 
an unformed language, and assisting to render it 
plastic for future speakers and writers." 

It is memorable, as marking the intellectual 
influence of women over the mind of the father of 
our poetry, how many of his works were written 
at their suggestion. The book of " The Duchess," 
"LaPriere de Notre Dame," " Chaucer's Dreame," 
"The Legende of Gode Women," were thus com- 
posed. 

Many had been the public calamities and com- 
motions that Chaucer had seen. In his youth 
the fearful pestilence of " the black death ; " 
afterwards, the splendid continental victories of 



26 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Edward; — the knightly shows and courtly splen- 
dours ; — the stirring of a thought like hidden fire 
among the people, roused by the voice of Wickliffe, 
who, moved by the spirit of truth, wrote severely 
against the wolves in sheep's clothing, w 7 ho in the 
name of religion practised on the superstitions of 
the oppressed people, saying of the friars, " they 
visiten rich men, and by hypocrisy getten falsely 
their alms, and withdrawen from poor men ; but 
they visiten rich widows for their muck, and 
maken them to be buried in the Friars, but poor 
men come not there." Of such he asserts that 
they " be worse enemies and slayers of men's soul 
than is the cruel fiend of hell himself ; for they, 
under the habit of holiness, lead men and nourish 
them in sins, and be special helpers of the fiend to 
strangle men's souls." 

Such words made the principles of the " Lol- 
lards," the early protest ants, spread rapidly among 
the people. The sense of wrong, however, is a 
different thing from a clear perception of right, 
and hence tumult and insurrection checked the 
progress of the Lollards. The revolt of Wat 
Tyler and John Ball shows pretty clearly the 
discontents, but not the knowledge, prudence, and 
power, of the people. Then followed the de- 
thronement of Richard and the accession of Henry 
IV. (the son of Chaucer's patron and brother-in- 
law, John of Gaunt), a circumstance that laid 



CHAUCER. 27 

the basis of the future wars of the succession be- 
tween the houses of York and Lancaster. 

Our poet father did not escape the discipline 
of adversity; he became involved in the affairs 
of John of Gaunt, and in the struggles of the 
Wickliffites and Lollards, and it was necessary for 
him to escape to the continent. He took refuge 
at Hainault, the birthplace of his wife, and re- 
mained there till the animosity of his adversaries 
or their power was modified. Subsequently, on 
his venturing to return, he met with ingratitude 
from his own party, and was for a time a prisoner 
in the Tower. After his release he suffered, ac- 
cording to some of his biographers, " sheer un- 
mistakable poverty." Thus he may be said to 
have completed the circle of human experience in 
his own person. High and low, rich and poor, 
rude and learned, a prison and a palace, his native 
land and foreign countries, were equally well 
known to him. Hence the universality of his 
knowledge, the aptness of his illustrations, the 
graphic delineation and distinctness of his cha- 
racters. 

His writings are of three kinds : his prose, con- 
taining " A Treatise on the Astrolabe," written 
for his son Lewis, a child of ten years, but so ad- 
vanced in his studies as to require his father's 
knowledge on the principles of astronomy as then 
understood, " The Testament of Love," and a 



28 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

translation of Boethius, " De Consolatione Philoso- 
phic ; " his miscellaneous and minor poems ; and 
his last and greatest work, "The Canterbury 
Tales," which, as a picture of the manners of the 
period, and as true to nature in all time, will ever 
be regarded as one of the very finest poems in our 
language. 

The age in which Chaucer wrote, despite its 
splendours and courtly magnificence, was exceed- 
ingly coarse in expression ; and hence our poet, 
desiring to show how people spoke, rather than 
how they ought to speak, has given some vile 
stories as gross men would then utter them ; his 
apology being, that tales of churls must be told 
in churlish manner, — a defence more artistic than 
moral. There are many narratives, however, 
abounding in tenderness and delicacy of sentiment. 

The introduction to the " Canterbury Tales " 
is admirable, not only for its graphic description, 
its life-like minuteness and poetic power, but 
as a record of the manners of the age. It is- a 
contribution to our historical knowledge, as well 
as our poetic literature. The ordinary reader, 
whose opportunities for study are not frequent, 
will be deterred, by the obsolete spelling and 
phraseology, from making intimate acquaintance 
with Chaucer. In the present day there have 
been many modernised versions, and while none 
of them can render fully the quaint grace and 



CHAUCER. 29 

affluent descriptions of the original, many, by their 
simplicity and faithful adherence to the text, have 
made Chaucer familiar to the reading public. 

We subjoin, slightly abridged, Mr. Cowden 
Clarke's beautiful prose version of the prologue to 
the " Canterbury Tales :" * — 

" In that pleasant season of the year, when the 
April showers and the soft west wind make the grass 
and flowers to spring up in every mead and heath, and 
birds welcome the shining days, it is the custom with 
the people from all parts of the country to set forth 
on pilgrimages to foreign lands, and more especially 
to pay their vows at the shrine raised in Canterbury 
to the holy martyr St. Thomas a Becket. 

" At this time of the year,, I Geoffry Chaucer, the 
writer of these tales, was remaining at the sign of the 
Tabard in Southwark, ready to set forth on my pil- 
grimage to Canterbury. In the evening a company 
of about nine and twenty persons bound on the same 
errand had assembled in the inn ; with all of whom I 
had made acquaintance before sunset, and had agreed 
to journey in their company the following day. Be- 
fore I enter upon my tale, the reader may desire to 
know what were the character, condition, and exterior 
accomplishments of my fellow travellers. These as 
they appeared to me, I supply as follows. 

" The first in order was a worthy Kxight, a wor- 
shipper from his youth of chivalrous and all gallant 

* " Tales from Chaucer, in Prose," by Charles Cowden 
Clarke. 



30 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

deeds ; a lover of truth and honour, frankness and 
courtesy. He had served with renown in his lord's 
wars against the heathen, the Russian, and the Turk ; 
had fought in fifteen battles, and in three tilting 
matches had slain his foe. With all these rough and 
unchamber-like accomplishments, he was in his de- 
meanour and address as meek as a young maiden. 
No villanous or injurious speech was ever heard to 
pass his lips. In short, he was a perfect knight of 
gentle blood. As regards his furniture and equip- 
ment, he rode a good and serviceable horse which had 
become staid and somewhat the worse for hard cam- 
paigning. His dress was a short fustian cassock, or 
gaberdine, soiled and fretted with his armour, for he 
had newly arrived from foreign travel, and was pro- 
ceeding straight to the shrine of our holy martyr at 
Canterbury. 

" He was accompanied by his son, a youth about 
twenty years of age, who acted as his Squire. The 
person of this young man was tall and well-propor- 
tioned, of great strength and activity. Being a 
bachelor and a lover, he was delicately attentive to his 
external appearance. His hair, which flowed in rich 
natural curls upon his shoulders, was carefully dis- 
posed. Hoping to win his lady's favour, he had be- 
haved with bravery in three several expeditions, in 
Flanders, in Artois, and in Picardy. His gown, 
which was short, with long open sleeves, was as fresh 
and gay as a spring meadow embroidered with flowers. 
Singing and piping all day long, lie was as cheerful 
as the month of May. In addition to all these graces, 
he was a fine horseman, a tasteful writer of songs, 



CHAUCER. 31 

excelled in the tournament and the dance, could write 
and draw with ease and elegance, and what was es- 
teemed a principal accomplishment in a squire of high 
degree, he was worthy to carve at table before his 
father. Courteous, humble, and dutiful, was this 
fair young man ; and withal so devoted to his lady- 
love that he would outwatch the doting nightingale. 

" One other attendant, and no more, had our Knight 
upon the present occasion ; a Yeoman dressed in a 
green coat and hood. He had a head like a nut *, 
and a face of the same colour. In his hand he carried 
a sturdy bow, and at his side under his belt a sheaf of 
bright sharp arrows winged with peacock feathers. 
His arm was defended by a bracer. On one side hung 
a sword and buckler, and on the other a well-appointed 
dagger, keen as a spear. At his breast hung a silver 
ornament, also a horn, the girdle or baldrick of which 
was green. Pie was a thorough forester, and skilful 
in all manner of woodcraft. 

" There was also in our company a nun, a Pkioress 
called Madame Eglantine, a demure and simply 
smiling lady, whose sharpest speech was, ' By Saint 
Eloy ! ' She could chant by heart the whole of the 
divine service, sweetly twanging it through her nose. 
She was mistress of the French language, as it is 
spoken at the school of Stratford-le-Bow ; but the 
French of Paris was to her unknown. Her conduct 
at meals was precisely well-bred and delicate, all her 

* There is some doubt whether this means " nut " or 
" knotte-head," the knob of a stick, or " neat-head," the 
head of a bullock. 



32 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

anxiety being to display a courteous and stately de- 
portment, and to be regarded in return with esteem 
and reverence. So charitable and piteous was her 
nature, that a dead or bleeding mouse in a trap w^ould 
wring her heart. She kept several little dogs, which 
were pampered on roast meat, milk, and the finest 
bread. Bitterly would she take on if one were ill- 
used or dead; in short, she was all conscience and 
tender heart. 

" To speak of her features, her nose was long but 
well-shaped, her eyes light and grey as glass, her 
mouth delicately small, soft, and red, and her forehead 
fair and broad. For dress she wore a neatly made 
cloak, and a carefully crimped neckkerchief ; on her 
arm was a pair of beads of small coral, garnished with 
green, from which depended a handsome gold brooch, 
with a great A engraved upon it, and underneath 
the motto ' Amor vincit omnia ' (Love overcomes all 
things). 

" In her train was another nun, who acted as chap- 
lain ; also three priests. 

" The next in succession was a Monk, one well 
calculated to rule his order. He was a bold rider and 
fond of hunting, a manly man, and worthy to have 
been an abbot. Many a capital horse had he in stall, 
and as he rode along, one could hear his bridle jingling 
in the whistling wind like the distant chapel bells. 

" Our monk set but little store by the strict regu- 
lations of the good old saints, holding rather with 
modern opinions : for instance, he cared not the value 
of a straw for that one that denies that a monk can be 
a hunter and at the same time a holy man ; or that out 



CHAUCER. 33 

of his cloister he is like a fish out of water. And 
indeed, there is some reason in his objection, for as 
he would say, ' why should he pore all day over his 
books till his brain is turned, or apply himself to 
handicraft labour, as St. Augustine ordains? Let 
St. Augustine stick to his day labour ! for himself he 
was a good hard rider outright, and kept his grey- 
hounds, which were as swift as swallows before rain ; 
coursing was his sole pleasure, and to gratify it he 
spared no cost. I noticed that his sleeves were em- 
broidered with the finest grey fur, and his hood 
fastened under his chin with a curiously chased gold 
clasp, at one end of which was wrought a true lover's 
knot. His head was bald and shone like glass ; his face, 
too, seemed as though it had been anointed ; his eyes 
were deeply set, and kept rolling in his head, which 
glowed and steamed like a furnace. He had anything 
but the air of a mortified and ghostly father ; indeed, a 
roast swan was his favourite dish. A fine and stately 
horse as brown as a berry, and boots supple and 
without a wrinkle, completed the equipment of this 
choice specimen of a prelate. 

" There was a Friar, a curator (one licensed to beg 
alms within a certain district), who, though in appear- 
ance a solemn man, was a wanton and merry wag. 
* * * * He was a favourite of all the country 
round, and especially cherished by the good dames of 
the town ; for being a licentiate (licensed by the pope 
to hear confessions), he was by his own account as 
great in hearing confession as a curate. Sweetly would 
he dispense the duties of shrift, and pleasant was his 
absolution. Whenever he expected a handsome 

D 



34 SKETCHES OP ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

pittance, the penance he enjoined was always light ; 
for it is a sign a man has been well shriven when he 
makes presents to a poor convent. 

" His tippet was constantly stored with articles of 
cutlery and knickknacks, which he distributed among 
the good wives in his perambulations. To these 
pleasant qualities, which made him every where a 
welcome guest, he added the grace of being a per- 
former on the lute and a merry singer. In figure he 
was as well made and strong as a champion of wrestler?, 
and the skin of his neck was as white as the lady lily. 
He was better acquainted with all the taverns, tapsters, 
and hostlers in the town, than with the strolling 
beggars, the sick, and the miserable : for a man of his 
worth and calling, it was more convenient as well as 
befitting that he should cultivate the acquaintance of 
the rich, and dispensers of good things, than with the 
diseased and the mendicant. Wherever he espied a 
chance of profit or advantage, there did he direct all 
his courtesy, and humbly ply his services. He was 
the expertest beggar in the convent, and obtained a 
grant that none of the brethren should cross him in 
his haunts ; for if a widow had barely a shoe to her 
foot, so sweet to her ear was his * as it was in the 
beginning,' &c, that he would extort a farthing from 
her before his departure. Of him it might be said 
that ' the labourer was of more worth than his hire.' 
On settling days he was a man of importance, not like 
the cloisterer, or poor scholar, with his threadbare 
cloak, but rather as master of the order, or even like 
the pope himself. 

" He wore a short cloak of double-woven worsted, 



CHAUCER. 35 

round as a lady's dress, uncrushed. He would lisp in 
his speech from wantonness or to give effect to his 
English ; and while he was singing, his eyes would 
twinkle like the stars in a frosty night. The name of 
this worthy limiter was Hubert. 

" There was a Merchant with a forked beard, and 
dressed in a motley suit, with a Flemish beaver hat. 
His boots were of the best manufacture, neatly clasped. 
He sat high upon his horse, and delivered his opinions 
in a solemn tone, always sounding forth the increase 
of winnings. He was for having the sea securely 
guarded, for the benefit of trade, between Middle- 
burgh and Orwell. His skill and knowledge in the 
various exchanges of money were remarkable ; and 
so prudently did he order his bargains and specula- 
tions, that he was esteemed a man of credit and sub- 
stance. 

" There was a Clerk, or scholar of Oxford, also, 
who was deeply skilled in logic. His horse was as lean 
as a rake, and he himself was not overfed, but looked 
hollow and staidly sober. His surtout was of the 
threadbare class ; for he had hitherto obtained no 
living, and not being a man of the world he was unfit 
for an office. He had rather have at his bed's head 
twenty books of Aristotle and his philosophy, than 
the costliest wardrobe and furniture. Though a phi- 
losopher, however, he had not yet discovered the 
golden secret of science, but all that he could scrape 
from his friends was forthwith spent in books of 
learning. Fervently would he pray for the souls of 
those who would assist him to purchase instruction, 
for study was the sole care of his life. In conversa- 

D 2 



36 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

tion lie never uttered a word more than was neces- 
sary, and that was said with a modest propriety, 
shortly and quickly, and full of meaning. His dis- 
course was pregnant with morality, and he as gladly 
gave as received instruction. 

"A Sergeant-at-Law, cautious and shrewd, who 
had been often at consultation, was there also. A 
prudent and deferential man, he had been frequently 
appointed justice of assize by patent and commission. 
Many were the fees and robes with which he had 
been presented on account of his great legal know- 
ledge and renown. There was no purchaser like him, 
and his dealings were above suspicion. He was the 
busiest of men, and yet he seemed more busy than he 
was. He had at his lingers' ends, all the terms, cases, 
and judgments from the time of the Conquest, and in 
his indictments, the man was clever that could detect 
a flaw : he knew all the statutes by heart. He rode in 
a plain coat of mixed cloth, fastened with a narrow 
striped silken girdle. 

" A country gentleman, commonly called a Frank- 
lin, was in our company. He had a fresh-coloured rosy 
face, and a beard as white as a daisy. A sop in wine 
was his favourite morning beverage ; for he was a 
true son of Epicurus, believing that the most perfect 
happiness consisted in perfect enjoyments. He pos- 
sessed a noble mansion, and was the most hospitable of 
entertainers. He dined at quality hours — always after 
one o'clock, and so plenteously stored was his table 
that his house may be said to have snowed meat and 
drink, fish, flesh, and fowl, and of these the daintiest. 
His suppers were furnished according to the season. 



CHAUCER. 37 

Many a fat partridge had he in his preserve ; and stewed 
bream or pike was a common dish at his board. Ill 
befell his cook if the sauce were too pungent or the 
dinner not punctually served. He kept open house, 
and the dining table in hall remained covered the 
whole day. 

" He had been at several times justice of the peace, 
sheriff, steward of the hundred court, and knight of 
the shire. Among all the country gentlemen round 
there was not his compeer. At his girdle, which was 
as white as morning milk, hung a dagger and a silken 
purse. 

" A Haberdasher, and a Carpenter, a Weaver, 
a Dyer, and a worker of Tapestry, members of a 
solemn and large fraternity, were all clothed in the 
same costume. Their furniture w^as all spick and 
span new. Their knives were not of the common 
description, mounted with brass, but wrought with 
pure silver ; their girdles and pouches also were 
equally costly. Each seemed to be of the respectable 
class of burgesses, who take the uppermost seats in the 
Guildhall. Their grave and sensible demeanour be- 
fitted them for the office of aldermen. They were 
men of landed estate, and wealthy in cattle ; and this 
their wives had no objection to, for it is a fine thing 
to be styled e Madam,' and to walk with your train 
supported like a queen in the first ranks to church. 

" The company had a Cook with them upon this 
occasion. He was the man of all others to tell you a 
draught of London ale out of a hundred. No one 
could match him in roasting and boiling ; his made 

D 3 



38 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

dishes, potted beef, raised pies, and blanc-mangers, 

were absolutely eminent. 

***** 

" A good wife of Bath made one of our company. 
She was unfortunately rather deaf, and had lost some 
of her teeth. She carried on a trade in cloth-making, 
which excelled the manufactures of Ypres and Ghent. 
No wife in all the parish could take precedence of her 
at mass ; and if one ever so presumed, she was wrath 
out of all charity. The kerchiefs which adorned her 
head on Sundays were of the finest web, and I dare 
swear weighed a pound. Her hose were of a brilliant 
scarlet, gartered up without a wrinkle ; and her shoes 
tight and new. She had been ever esteemed a worthy 
woman, and had accompanied to church five husbands 
in her time. Having thrice travelled to Jerusalem, 
crossing many a strange river, and having visited 
Kome, Saint James's, Cologne with its three Kings, 
and passed through Galicia, she had a world of in- 
telligence to communicate by the way. Her dress 
consisted of a spruce neckerchief, a hat as broad as a 
target, a mantle wrapping her fair hips, and on her 
feet were a pair of sharp spurs. She rode upon an 
ambling pony. In company she took her share in 
the laugh, and would display her remedies for all 
complaints in love : she could play a good hand at that 
game. 

" There was also a religious man, who was a poor 
Village Parson : yet was he rich in holy thoughts 
and works as well as in learning ; a faithful preacher of 
the Gospel of Christ ; full of gentleness and diligence, 
patient in adversity and forbearing. So far was he 



CHAUCEE. 39 

from distressing for his tythes, that he disbursed his 
offerings and almost his whole substance among his 
parishioners : a pittance sufficed him. The houses in 
his parish were situate far asunder, yet neither wind 
and rain, nor storm and tempest, could keep him from 
his duty ; but, with staff in hand, would he visit the 
remotest, great and small, rich and poor. This noble 
example he kept before his flock, that first he himself 
performed what he afterwards preached, joining this 
figure with his admonition, ' If gold will rust, what 
will not iron do ? ' For, if a priest in whom we 
confide become tarnished, a wonder if the frail layman 
keep himself unpolluted. The priest should set an 
example of purity to his flock ; for how shameful a 
sight is a foul shepherd and cleanly sheep. He did 
not let out his benefice to hire, or desert his flock to 
run up to London for the purpose of seeking promo- 
tion ; but steadily kept house and guarded well the 
fold. He was the true shepherd, and no hireling. 
Moreover, holy and virtuous as he was, he turned an 
eye of pity upon the sinful man, mingling his lectures 
with discretion and benignity. It was the business of 
his life by good example to lead his fellow creatures 
gently to Heaven. The obstinate and stiff-necked, 
however, whether in high or low estate, were sure to 
receive from him a severe rebuke. A better priest I 
know not far or near ; he craved neither pomp nor re- 
verence, or betrayed any affected scrupulousness of 
conscience, but the doctrine of Christ and his apostles 
he taught with simplicity, first following it himself. 
He had a brother with him, a Ploughman, who had 
in his time scattered many a load of dung, a thorough 

D 4 



40 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

hard labourer, living in peace and perfect charity with 
all men : above all things and at all times he best loved 
his God and Creator, and then his neighbour as him- 
self. When it lay in his power he would finish a job 
of thrashing for a poor man without hire. He paid 
his tythes fairly and punctually, both of his produce 
and live stock. He was dressed in a tabard, and rode 
upon a mare. 

" There were also a Reeve, and a Miller, a Sum- 
moned, a Pardoner, a Manciple, and myself. 

u The Miller was a hardy churl, brawny, and large 
of bone ; he always bore away the prize ram in wrest- 
ling matches ; he was short-shouldered, broad, and 

stubby. 

* * * * * 

" There was a gentle Manciple (an officer who pur- 
chased food for inns of court), who was a pattern to 
all caterers and purchasers of provision ; for whether 
he paid in ready money or went upon credit, he always 
so managed his accounts to have a surplus of cash in 

hand. 

* * # # * 

" The Reeve (a bailiff or land steward) was a 
slender choleric man ; his beard was close-shaven, like 
stubble, and hair cropped round his ears with a fore- 
lock like a priest. * * * He was alive to all the 
tricks and contrivances of labourers and other bailiffs, 
so that they stood in awe of him as they would of 
death himself. He had a handsome house upon a 
heath, 'bosomed high in green trees,' and in short 
was better provided than his master, for he had 
secretly amassed considerable property, which he 



CHAUCEK. 41 

would upon occasion artfully lend to his lord in his 
necessities, and thus confer an easy obligation out of 
his own superfluity. 

u There was a Summoner (of culprits to ecclesias- 
tical courts) with us, whose face was like one of the 
fiery cherubim ; for it was studded with red-hot carbun- 
cles. He had small puckered eyes, scurfy brows, and 
a black scanty beard. The children were frightened at 
the sight of him. His favourite food and beverage were 
garlic, leeks, and onions, and the strongest bodied red 
wine. Then would he shout and rave like a madman, 
speaking nothing but Latin : he had caught up a few 
terms out of some law decree, and no wonder, for he 
heard nothing else all day, and every one knows that 
a jay can speak what he has been taught as well as 
the pope himself; but let any one try him a little 
further, he would find his philosophy quite spent — 
Questio quid juris ? would then be the answer. He 
was, however, a kind fellow in his way, and would for 
a quart of wine or so, w T ink at his neighbour's delin- 
quences ; but if he found one with a good warm purse, 
he would tell him he need not care for the arch- 
deacon's malediction ; just as if a man's soul were in his 
purse, for in purse he should be punished. The purse, 
would he say, is the archdeacon's hell ; in all which I 
pronounce him to be an arch deceiver, since the guilty 
man should ever stand in awe of a curse. 

" A gentle Pardoner rode also with this wight, his 
friend and compeer. He was originally from Ronce- 
veaux, and had now newly arrived from the court of 
Rome. The burden of the song, ' Come hither, love, 
to me,' was constantly running in his head, which he 



42 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

shouted at full stretch of his lungs, the summoner all 
the while accompanying him with his stiff bass, as if 
it had been a double clarion. This pardoner had 
smooth yellow hair, which hung by ounces about him, 
like a strike of flax overspreading his shoulders. In 
the gaiety of his heart he wore no hood, but kept it 
packed up in his wallet, so he rode with his head bare, 
save and except a cap, in which was fastened a ver- 
nicle (a picture of Jesus Christ in miniature). He 
prided himself upon his sitting on horseback, as being 
after the newest fashion. Before him lay his wallet 
stuffed with pardons all hot from Rome. He had a full 
glaring eye like a hare's, a sneaking voice like a 
goat's, and a chin which never owned the inheritance 
of a beard. 

" And now to speak of his profession. If you were 
to search from Ware to Berwick-upon-Tweed, you 
would not meet with such another pardoner. Among 
his relics he could produce a pillow covering, which he 
would pronounce to be the Virgin Mary's veil ; a small 
piece of the seal which St. Peter had with him when 
he walked upon the sea ; a brazen cross set with 
brilliants ; and some pig's bones in a glass. With these 
relics he would make in one day more money among 
the poor country people, than the parson would in two 
months. Thus with his flattery and his falsities he 
made fools of both priest and people. 

" Notwithstanding all this, however, I must acknow- 
ledge that he was a famous churchman : he read the 
service with dignity and emphasis, though he shone 
to greater advantage at the Offertory ; for he knew 
that the sermon would then succeed, in which it be- 



CHAUCER. 43 

hoved him to polish up his tongue, for the purpose of 
procuring a handsome collection afterwards, wherein 
he was successful. Therefore, in the anticipation of 
it, he would sing like a blackbird after rain. 

" Thus have I related to you the list, the calling, the 
array, and the purport, of that assembly's being col- 
lected at the above-mentioned inn in Southwark, 
called the < Tabard.'" 

The picture of the Host of that inn, and his 
plan of the amusements of the journey, is a worthy 
sequel to this graphic description of the people of 
the olden time. 

" Our host set before us, at supper, an excellent 
entertainment ; the food and the wine were of the best 
quality. He was a comely man, large in person, with 
sunken eyes, and worthy to have been created marshal 
in a hall : the whole ward of Cheap cannot boast a 
fairer citizen, — bold and manly, plain and sensible 
in his speech, at the same time merry withal. He 
thus addressed the company, after we had all paid our 
reckoning : ' Now, my masters, permit me to welcome 
you heartily to our inn ; for, by my troth, I have not 
this year seen so honourable a company as is now seen 
beneath this roof: fain would I contribute to your 
amusement were it in my power. In proof of this, a 
thought has just struck me, which will cost you 
nothing. You are all about to journey to Canterbury ; 
God and the blessed Martyr reward you. Well, as 
you travel along, you will be for whiling the way 
with gossip and glee ; for, truly, there is little com- 
fort in journeying as dull as a stone. If, therefore* 



44 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

you will abide by my judgment, and proceed to- 
morrow as I shall direct, whip off my head, if I don't 
make you a merry company ! Without more ado, 
hold up your hand, if you agree to my proposal ? ' 

" Our consent was not long to seek, seeing that 
there was no occasion for much deliberation. We, 
therefore, granted him his terms, and bade him speak 
on. 

" 6 To come to the point, then, my masters, each of 
you on the way to and from Canterbury shall relate 
two adventures, and whoso shall acquit himself the 
best, that is, in tales of most mirth and judgment, 
shall have a supper here at the general expense upon 
your return from Canterbury ; and to contribute to 
your entertainment, I will myself ride with you at my 
own cost, and be your guide. Furthermore, let me make 
a condition, that whosoever shall call my judgment in 
question he shall bear the whole cost of the journey. 
If you grant me my condition, say so at once, and I 
will early prepare for my undertaking.' 

" We cheerfully bound ourselves to abide by his 
terms, at the same time engaging him to be our go- 
vernor, to sit in judgment upon the merit of our stories, 
also to provide a supper at a stated price per head, and 
that we would, both high and low, be ruled by his 
decision. All this, and the wine at the same time, 
having been discussed, without longer delay we all 
went to roost." 

There is not, in the same compass, any descrip- 
tion that so fully places the people of the olden time 
before the minds of modern readers. Any one 



CHAUCER. 45 

reading this succession of pictures, must feel that 
they have the individuality of portraits. Well 
has it been said, " His poetry reads like history. 
Every thing has a downright reality ; at least in 
the narrator's mind. A simile, or a sentiment, 
is as if it were given in upon evidence" * 

Fox, the Martyrologist, has said, that " Chaucer 
was a right Wickliffian, or else there never was 
any." And though that has been deemed an 
exaggerated estimate of the protestantism of 
Chaucer, yet no one can read his description of 
the worldly pleasure-taking " Monk," loving his 
horse, and dogs, and good living; the subtle 
" Friar," seeking the money rather than the souls 
of the people ; the " Summoner," with his fiery 
visage, doubtless a character well known as often 
summoning the hapless Lollards to cruel tribu- 
nals ; the " Pardoner," with his wallet of indul- 
gences for those who could pay for them, and his 
rubbish of relics to work on the superstition of 
the devout, — without feeling assured such true 
pictures must have had their influence for good 
on the awakening mind of the people ; while the 
portrait of a " poor parson," the faithful minister 
of Christ, has all the beauty of apostolic simplicity 
in itself, and all the force of contrast to rouse the 
attention of the reader. 

Those have a poor and false idea of poetry who 
* Hazlett's " Lectures on Poetry." 



46 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

hold that is only intended to please the ear, and 
minister to the imagination. Its true work is to 
guide the spirit of the age, and lead it forward in 
the march of sound opinion and steady progress. 
Chaucer did this, not perhaps with so direct a 
purpose, but with nearly as great ultimate suc- 
cess, as Wickliffe himself. 

Contemporary with Chaucer was Gower, cele- 
brated as " the moral Gower ;" a more ostensible 
moral design, but far less force, universality, and 
genius being manifest in his writings. Gower 
and Chaucer became acquainted at Oxford in 
their early days. The contemporary voice was 
loudest in praise of Gower, though posterity has 
long since reversed that judgment. A terrible 
stigma of ingratitude attaches to Gower. He 
forgot the benefits the hapless Richard II. heaped 
on him, and was among the first to congratulate 
the successful usurper Henry IV., and to pour 
contempt on his fallen patron and monarch. 
Chaucer, though a family connexion of the new 
monarch, practised no such meanness; and he 
must have shrunk, with deep sorrow, from the 
treachery of his friend and brother poet. 

Gower wrote several minor and three longer 
poems, or rather a long poem in three distinct 
parts. The latter were composed in three different 
languages — Latin, French, and English. The 
first, "Speculum Meditantis" is a moral poem, 



GOWER. 47 

recommending, from various historical examples, 
conjugal purity and affection. The second, " Vox 
Clamantis" is a poetical chronicle of the insur- 
rection of the commons in the reign of Richard II. 
" Confessio Amantis " is written in English at the 
desire of Richard II., and is a poetical system of 
morality, illustrated by amusing tales. This last 
is the only one of the three poems that has been 
printed. Gower certainly was in no sense such a 
national benefactor as Chaucer. The latter chose 
our English language only, as the vehicle of his 
thoughts, though doubtless he often wove foreign, 
particularly French, words into his poems. When 
the poet Spenser speaks of Chaucer, 

"As a well of English undefiled," 

he must refer, not merely to the actual words 
the poet used, but to his practice of composing 
in the vernacular tongue, which he amplified and 
enriched by grafting many foreign words upon it, 
that helped him to render his meaning more fully. 

Chaucer died in 1400, having outlived Wick- 
liffe fifteen years. Gower, who was the senior of 
both by a few years, died in 1402. Apart from 
the intrinsic value of their writings, and the mis- 
sion of their lives, these three men had demon- 
strated the power of the English language, and 
increased its capabilities. No writer from their 



48 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

time could term the language barbarous, or in- 
adequate to the purposes of the divine, the orator, 
and the poet. 

Thus a firm basis was laid by them on which 
to erect the superstructure of a National Liter- 
ature, 



THE ART OF PRINTING. 49 



CHAP. II. 

THE ART OF PRINTING, ITS PROFESSORS AXD PATRONS. 

A LONG period of gross darkness succeeded the 
time of Wickliffe and Chaucer. Public events 
will in some measure account for the check that 
mental activity received- Both Henry IV. and 
his son, the fifth of the name, adopted the plan of 
diverting the attention of the people from political 
grievances and theological investigations, by lead- 
ing them to war with France. And when, at 
length, these foreign contests ended, there ensued 
the terrible civil broils — the lYars of the Roses 
— that lasted thirty years, were signalized by 
twelve pitched battles, cost the lives it is said of 
eighty princes of the blood, almost annihilated the 
ancient nobility of England, and, what was much 
worse, devastated the land, checked the efforts of 
industry, impoverished and brutalized the people, 
and obviously prevented the spread of learning 
and the advance of civilization. 

The two great events of the fifteenth century 
were the introduction of the art of printing, and 
the discovery of America. It will be interesting 
to note some of the subordinate matters connected 

E 



50 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

with literature, prior to the introduction of that 
art which was to enfranchise the human mind. 

It is a little humbling to the pride of human 
genius to note how the perpetuating and multi- 
plying of a thought depended on small matters. 
The causes that principally operated to keep the 
human mind in darkness for ages, were the scarcity 
of materials for writing, and the consequent dear- 
ness of manuscripts. 

Stone slabs, metal plates, wooden blocks, the 
bark of trees, leaves of a tough fibre, and papyrus, 
manufactured from a species of rush, which the 
ancients procured exclusively on the banks of the 
Nile, were the first materials used before prepared 
skins, as parchment and vellum, were introduced. 
An iron graver was the pen used for stone or 
metal surfaces. A coating of wax was spread 
over the wooden blocks for occasional rather than 
permanent writing ; which had the convenience of 
being easily obliterated by heat, and presented a 
smooth surface. A bone or ivory style was the 
implement used for writing on this. Egyptian 
reeds were used for writing on bark, papyrus, and 
parchment. The use of quill pens, though known 
in the seventh century, did not become general till 
six hundred years later. 

The tablets, or thin slices of wood, when fas- 
tened together, formed a book, Codex, so called 
from resembling the trunk of a tree split into 



THE ART OF PRINTING. 51 

planks — hence our word code. The leaves used 
for writing give us our word Folio 9 from the Latin 
folium, a leaf. When the inner bark was preferred, 
that of the lime tree especially, it was called liber — 
hence Liber, the Latin name for a book, and the 
root of many words referring to books. When these 
bark books were rolled into a portable form they 
were called volumen — hence our word volume. And 
the primitive meaning of the Anglo-Saxon word 
boc, is the beech tree — from which our word book. 
Paper from rags — first cotton and then linen — 
was made, according to Dr. Robertson's account, 
in the eleventh century. The learned historian 
of the middle ages, Hallam, entirely discredits the 
assertion that paper was in use so early, He dates 
its introduction, if not invention, as late as the 
thirteenth, or early in the fourteenth century. # 
This useful material must have supplied a most 
important means of improvement. Parchment 
and vellum had always been dear, and owing to 
the monopolies in the manufacture they were 
scarce ; and, therefore, in themselves, were likely 
to become sources of temptation to persons who 
cared not for what was written thereon, indeed, 
could not understand it, but who could always find 
a market for the material, whether written on or 
blank. The loss of several of the valuable manu- 

* See Hallam's " Introduction to the Literature of 
Europe," vol. i. pp. 55—57. 

e 2 



52 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

scripts of antiquity is to be accounted for most 
probably in this way. So that the invention of 
paper could not fail to be a great boon to society. 

The art of transcribing was carried on prin- 
cipally by the monks. Every great abbey, and 
most convents, had a scriptorium, or writing room ; 
and the immense sums paid for manuscripts in- 
duced poorer orders of monks and nuns diligently 
to cultivate the art of transcribing. As writing 
materials became more accessible, the number of 
copyists increased. Some of that trade, or pro- 
fession, were to be found in every great town, 
especially in such as had universities. At the 
time when printing was introduced into Paris, 
more than 6000 persons subsisted by copying 
and illuminating manuscripts. 

The earliest books were rolled on a cylinder, 
and called, as we said, volumen; and then a ball of 
wood or ivory was fastened on the outside for 
security and ornament, and completed the binding, 
if so we may call it. Julius Caesar, introduced 
the custom of folding his letters in the square 
form, like our books. In the middle ages the 
monks were the bookbinders. And there were 
also traders called ligatores, whose business it was 
to sell covers, which were chiefly made of sheep 
and deer skin. Books were often sold in the 
porches of the churches ; but the slow process of 
multiplying books by transcribing them with the 



THE ABT OF PRINTING. 53 

hand, would naturally prevent any such traffic in 
them as would make it a distinct business to sell 
them. Booksellers, however, appeared at the 
latter part of the twelfth century. The lawyers 
and the universities originated this trade. 

Some curious records of the price of books be- 
fore the introduction of printing have come down 
to us. Stow, in his " Survey of London," says 
that in 1433, 66/. 13s. 4rf. was paid for tran- 
scribing a copy of the works of Nicholas Lyra, in 
two volumes, to be chained in the library of the 
Grey Friars. We may estimate how large a sum 
that was when we find that the usual price of 
wheat then was 5s. 4rf. the quarter : the wages of 
a ploughman Id. a day ; of a mechanic, as a sawyer 
or stone-cutter, 4d. In 1429 the price of one of 
Wickliffe's English New Testaments was four 
marks and forty pence, or 21. 16s. Sd. The price 
of a cow at this time was 8s., and of a good horse 
about 20s. 

Warton, in his " History of English Poetry," 
says, " when a book was bought, the affair was of 
so much importance that it was customary to 
assemble persons of consequence and character, 
and to make a formal record that they were 
present on the occasion." Bonds were given, and 
extensive deposits of plate or money, when manu- 
scripts were borrowed. When they were be- 
queathed as legacies, it was often in fee, and for 

E 3 



54 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the term of a life, and afterwards to the library of 
some religious house. 

When all these facts are considered, it is not 
surprising that many monasteries had only one 
missal, or one psalter, and that in 1400 the library 
at Rome had little else than missals and legends. 

The common people, who could have no access 
to books, were necessarily dependent on oral 
teaching, and Wickliffe's preaching, rather than 
his writings, spread his opinions among the popu- 
lace. 

William Caxton, the first English printer, was 
a Kentish man, born about 1412. His parents 
were worthy people ; and it is memorable that, at 
a time when from political troubles and the un- 
settled state of the country, education was neg- 
lected, the parents of Caxton reared their son 
carefully. " I am bounden," says he, " to pray 
for my father's and mother's souls, that, in my 
youth, sent me to school, by which by the suffer- 
ance of God I get my living, I hope, truly." He 
was apprenticed to a citizen of London, — a mercer, 
— that name being then given to designate a 
general merchant trading in various goods. That 
Caxton was a diligent and faithful apprentice may 
be inferred from the fact, that his master, William 
Large, in 1441 left him, in his will, a legacy of 
13/. 6s. 8d., a handsome sum in those days. After 
he received this legacy he went abroad, being pro- 



CAXTOX. 55 

bably engaged in mercantile pursuits. He con- 
tinued, for the most part, in the countries of 
Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zealand, all at 
this time under the dominion of the Duke of 
Burgundy, one of the most powerful princes of 
Europe. While Caxton's countrymen were con- 
testing in the battle-field the claim of the rival 
Houses of York and Lancaster, he was exercising 
his acute and observant mind, acquiring the 
French and Dutch languages, and preparing him- 
self, by a peaceful and thoughtful life, for his 
great work as a benefactor to his country. In 
1464 he was sent on a mission by Edward IV. 
to continue and confirm some important treaties 
of commerce with the Duke of Burgundy. The 
Low Countries were at that time the great mart 
of Europe, and Caxton, bred to commerce, from 
his experience, would be able to enter into treaties 
beneficial to his own long-troubled land. 

In 1450 Guthenberg, generally considered to be 
the first printer, entered into partnership with 
Fust, a rich merchant of Mentz, who supplied 
the sums necessary to carry the invention into 
effect. 

Charles, the son and successor to the Duke of 
Burgundy, whom Caxton had first known, married 
Margaret, sister to our Edward IV., and Caxton, 
who could scarcely have been a merchant on his 
own account, was appointed to some post in the 

E 4 



56 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

household of the Duchess. The exact nature and 
salary of his office is not known ; but he was on 
terms of familiar intercourse with Margaret, who 
seems to have rightly appreciated her estimable 
countryman. Caxton had been deeply interested 
in the new and wondrous art of printing, and he 
had exercised himself in making some translations 
from books that pleased him. 

" In 1469," he says, " having no great charge 
or occupation, and wishing to eschew sloth and 
idleness, which is the mother and nourisher of 
vices, having good leisure, being at Cologne, I 
set about finishing the translation (of the 6 Histo- 
ries of Troy '). When, however, I remembered 
my simpleness and imperfections in French and 
English, I fell in despair of my works, and after 
I had written five or six quairs, purposed no more 
to have continued therein, and^ the quairs (books) 
laid apart; and in two years after laboured no 
more in this work; till in a time it fortuned 
the Lady Margaret sent for me to speak with her 
good Grace of divers matters, among the which 
I let her have knowledge of the foresaid begin- 
ning." " The Dutchess," he adds, " found fault with 
myne English, which she commanded me to amend, 
and to continue and make an end of the residue ; 
which command I durst not disobey." The Duchess 
both encouraged and rewarded him liberally. 
He mentions in the prologue and epilogue to this 



CAXTON. 57 

book, that his eyes are dim with overmuch look- 
ing on the white paper ; and that age was creeping 
on him daily, and enfeebling all his body ; that he 
" had learned and practised at great charge and 
dispense to ordain this said hook in print, and not 
written with pen and ink, as other books be." 

This, it seems, was not the first book he had 
printed at Cologne. 

He returned to England about 1472, when he 
would be sixty years old, after having lived thirty 
years on the continent. He brought with him 
some unsold copies of the works he had printed at 
Cologne. Thomas Milling, Bishop of Hereford, 
and Abbot of Westminster, was Caxton's first 
patron. It was probably by his permission that 
Caxton set up his printing press in the almonry 
or one of the chapels attached to the Abbey. 

There is something inexpressibly interesting in 
the fact that this great and good man entered on his 
new and difficult enterprise at a time of life when 
most men are seeking rest and quietude. Pa- 
tronage was to be obtained, prejudice to be over- 
come, expence to be incurred, labour to be per- 
formed. What but a deep sense of the importance 
of his art to the welfare of his countrymen could 
have sustained him? It has been argued that the 
inferior character of most of the works he printed 
is an evidence of a very humble intellect in Cax- 
ton, as well as a degenerate taste in the age. The 



58 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

humility and frankness with which he speaks of 
his own defects are evidences of greatness; and that 
his press sent forth books likely to be immediately 
read was a proof of practical good sense. The 
great matter was to make his art known to the 
many rather than the few. The learned were 
perhaps among the prejudiced. The noble and 
time-honoured craft of the scribe was in danger, 
and their cry in other lands might well operate to 
make Caxton proceed with caution. 

The dates are not affixed to Caxton's earliest 
works. " The Game of Chess," and the '* Ro- 
mance of Jason," are considered to be the first spe- 
cimens of his art. An eminent patron of Caxton's 
was Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers, the brother 
of the Queen Elizabeth (wife of Edward IV.). 
He was a learned nobleman — a distinction some- 
what rare then, and perhaps deserved only by the 
nobleman in question, and his illustrious and un- 
fortunate contemporary the Earl of Worcester. 
Caxton had been intimate with the last-named 
nobleman on the continent. This Earl of Wor- 
cester was a great manuscript collector, and re- 
sided many years in Italy for the purpose of 
study. Pope Pius II. said of him, " Behold the 
only prince of our time that for virtue and elo- 
quence may be justly compared to the most ex- 
cellent emperors of Greece and Rome." Such a 
compliment from an Italian to an Englishman in 



CAXTON. 59 

that day must have been extorted by the force of 
truth. 

This nobleman perished on the block during the 
commotions of Edward's reign about two years 
before Caxton set up his printing press. He left 
many translations from the classics. Caxton 
printed two of his translations of Cicero ; and when 
he performed this labour of love for the deceased 
nobleman, exclaims, " Oh good blessed Lord God ! 
what great losse was it of that noble, virtuous, and 
well-disposed lord, the Earl of Worcester." " The 
axe then did at one blow cut off more learning 
than was in the heads of all the surviving nobility." 

Lord Rivers was more fortunate in seeing his 
works printed. (The first English author, if we 
except Caxton himself, who had that pleasure.) 
He translated " The wise Sayings or Dictes of the 
Philosophers " from the French, and M The 
wise and wholesome Proverbs of Christina of 
Pisa," and some other works. His near relation- 
ship to the Queen provoked the jealousy of the 
nobles, and he also, during the reverses of the 
Yorkists, perished on the block, in the prime ot 
his life, about ten years after the art he had en- 
couraged, and some say aided to introduce, was 
brought into England. 

Subsequently one of Caxton's most influential 
patrons was Margaret Beaufort, the mother of 
Henry VII. It was natural that a lady who 



60 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

founded two colleges at Cambridge and one at 
Oxford, and established numerous grammar schools, 
and itinerent preachers throughout the land, 
should favour an art that promised to aid educa- 
tion in a manner previously undreamed of; there- 
fore, we are not surprised that the Lady Margaret 
used her influence with the king, her son, to in- 
duce him to patronise the printer, who was 
working away with all diligence in the Abbey. 

Wonderfully did that old man work ! He had 
not only to print, but to select manuscripts, and 
make translations, and, as we should call it, edit 
the works he printed. The productions of his 
press are sixty-four. Many of them were ro- 
mances, as " The Liff of King Arthur," " The 
History of Charlemagne," &c. Some were on 
chivalry and manners : " The Fait of Armes 
and Chivalry " he translated and printed at 
the command of Henry VII. Some were 
descriptive and historical, as his " Book for 
Travellers," his " Chronicle and Description of 
Britain ; " some translations, or prose versions 
of the classics, " Virgil " and " Cicero : " " Rey- 
nard the Fox " from the Dutch, and Chaucer's 
"Canterbury Tales;" which latter he twice 
printed*, and gave some admirable prefatory criti- 

* The reason of Caxton twice printing the " Canterbury 
Tales " is very honourable to him. War ton says, " He pro- 
bably took the first manuscript he could procure to print 



CAXTON. 61 

cisms on the great poet, saying, " And so, in all 
his works, he excelleth, in mine opinion, all other 
writers in our English ; for he writeth no void 
words, but all his matter is full of high and quick 
sentence, to whom ought to be given laud and 
praise for his noble making and writing." It is 
computed that Caxton translated not fewer than 
5000 closely printed folio pages, and, according 
to Wynkyn de Worde, his ally and succes- 
sor's testimony, continued his labours " to the 
last day of his life," in 1490-1. Never was there 
a seventeen or eighteen years of more continuous 
labour than this aged man performed. What an 
example was his life, in that age when, ac- 
cording to Hallam, the little intellectual power 
possessed was devoted to a study of " Heraldry, 
that speaks to the eye of pride ; and the science 
of those who despise every other was cultivated 
with ingenious pedantry." When men exhausted 
their skill in devising instruments of torture, and 
gratified the basest passions by tumult and cruelty; 
when murder stalked around the throne, oppres- 
sion crushed the people, and ignorance was the 

from, and it happened unluckily to be one of the worst in all 
respects that he could have met with." As soon as Caxton 
found out the imperfections and errors he began a second 
edition, conscientiously stating he did so " for to satisfy (or 
do justice to) the author, whereas tofore (previously) I had 
erred in hurting and defamying his boke." 



62 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

general doom, this man lived, manfully, a noble 
intelligent life. His clear faculties, kept bright 
by use, were undimmed to the last. He is a 
wonderful instance of what may be effected by 
continuing to cultivate the mind and employ it. 
He learned his art with much labour in middle 
age, and began to practise it when well stricken 
in years; yet youth could not have been more 
zealous, or early maturity more indefatigable. 

It is significant of the times when Caxton wrote, 
that no works of religion or politics came from 
his press. Books printed in England before the 
end of the century amounted to 141, of which 
130 were printed in London and Westminster, 
7 at Oxford, and 4 at St. Alban's. 

Caxton had many foreigners in his employment ; 
and there were others, his rivals, who set up print- 
ing presses during his lifetime, in London, Ox- 
ford, and St. Alban's. The most celebrated man 
after Caxton was his before-named assistant, 
Wynkyn de Worde, who succeeded him in his 
printing office, and continued in that old office in 
Westminster Abbey until about 1502 ; when he 
removed to the sign of " The Sun," in the parish of 
St. Bride, where he died in 1534. Being a man 
of great taste, as well as learning, he introduced 
many improvements in type and workmanship: 
neatness, accuracy, and elegance are the charac- 
teristics of the books he printed, amounting, at 



R1CHAKD PYNSON. 63 

least, to 408 in number. Many educational 
works were printed at his press, as vocabularies, 
accidences — some with the titles " Milk for Chil- 
dren," " Orchards of Words," " Promptuaries " 
for little children, " Lucidaries." What a boon 
would these books be to the children of that time, 
and to their teachers ! To borrow, with much diffi- 
culty, a manuscript grammar, and to transcribe it, 
was the only method previously adopted by either 
the teachers or the taught. And even in the 
universities, the time and opportunity for reading 
was limited by many restrictions : 1446, by the 
statutes of St. Mary's College, Oxford, it was 
enacted, that " No scholar shall occupy a book 
in the library above one hour, or two hours at 
most, lest others should be hindered from the use 
of the same." 

It is not surprising that a very great zeal 
for learning should spring up at this time. The 
difficulties that had previously obstructed every 
step in the path of knowledge were being removed, 
and a spirit of energy and emulation arose that 
brought about wonderful changes in the course of 
the century that now commenced. 

Richard Pynson, a Norman by birth, and also 
an assistant of Caxton, introduced the Roman 
letter into this country. His books are not 
thought such admirable specimens of typography 
as De Worde's, but they fully equalled his in 



64 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

usefulness. The first treatise of arithmetic ever 
published in this country was printed by Pynson ; 
it was written by Cuthbert Tonstall, Bishop of 
London. 

Thomas Hunt, an Englishman, was one of the 
first known printers at Oxford, and John Sibert, 
a native of Lyons, it is said, at Cambridge. Be- 
sides these universities, St. Alban's, York, and 
Tavistock, were the first towns in the provinces 
where printing presses were set up. 

From this time thoughts were perpetuated, and 
knowledge became free ; and persecution and 
injustice received a powerful check. To what 
purpose was it to kill the body of some gifted 
thinker, w^hen his opinions could be multiplied 
and dispersed every where? It was not kings 
and councils, but the printing press, that made 
the people ripe for, and brought about, the Re- 
formation. Well might Wynkyn de Worde have 
" The Sun " as the sign of his printing office : - — 
all nature could not furnish a symbol more appro- 
priate of that art, which was to disperse the dark- 
ness and mists of ignorance, and spread a genial 
flood of light over the world. 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 65 



CHAP. III. 

FEMALE EDUCATION AND INFLUENCE AFTER THE INTRO- 
DUCTION OF PRINTING. — SKETCH OF EARLY FEMALE 
WRITERS. 

It has been matter of surprise to thoughtful 
readers, that the English language which, at the 
time of the introduction of printing, was so rude, 
should, in little more than a hundred years after 
that event, have attained to such an elegance and 
power that many of the writings in prose and 
poetry of the time of Elizabeth and James are 
models of composition rarely equalled, and never 
surpassed, even to this day. 

The first effect of the art of printing was to 
advance education : schools became more general, 
books of instruction more attainable ; added to 
which there was the impetus of novelty, stimu- 
lating curiosity and energy. Women of high 
rank in England had never been indifferent to the 
progress of literature ; but in this sixteenth cen- 
tury they not only admired learning and know- 
ledge in others, — they were induced, by the new 
facilities afforded, to cultivate them for them- 
selves* Hence, among the collateral aids to the 

F 



66 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

wonderful advancement of mind at that period, 
the educational attainments of some influential 
women must be admitted. 

The patronage of scholastic institutions by 
women during the middle ages must ever remain 
a satisfactory proof of their zeal to promote the 
intellectual advancement of the nation. Queens, 
indeed, might found colleges, as much because of 
the responsibilities of a high station, as from a 
real love of learning ; but there have been many 
female patrons of education of humbler rank than 
princesses. 

The history of the two universities is a 
testimony to the ardour for the advancement of 
learnino* that dwelt in manv female minds. At 
Oxford : Merton College, whose chief benefactress 
was Ella Longespee, Countess of Warwick ; Ba- 
liol College, completed by the piety of Lady Der- 
vorguilla, and most liberally endowed by her; 
Trinity* and Wadhamf Colleges, both completed 
by widows, who nobly carried out their deceased 
husbands' intentions, and with even enlarged 
liberality. The female name is fully as conspicu- 
ous at Cambridge : Emanuel College, Clare Hall, 
Pembroke Hall, Queen's College, Christ's College, 
St. John's College, Sydney Sussex College, are 
the noble and enduring monuments that attest the 
munificence of women in promoting education. 

* Lady Paulet. f Lady Wadman. 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 67 

Among the illustrious women who adorned the 
age immediately following the introduction of 
printing are the daughters of Sir Thomas More, 
particularly his favourite child and counsellor Mrs. 
Margaret Roper, whom the learned Erasmus 
called " The Glory of Britain," for her attain- 
ments doubtless, as, at the time the scholar 
uttered the eulogium, her filial piety had not been 
so tested by the misfortunes of her father. There 
was also Queen Katherine Parr, a patroness of the 
Reformation ; and, later, that admirable and inno- 
cent victim of the cruel ambition of her kindred, 
Lady Jane Grey, who was the theme of praise 
of all competent to judge of her marvellous ac- 
quirements. The four daughters of Sir Anthony 
Cook were also distinguished for learning. One 
of these, Mildred, became Lady Burleigh, the 
wife of Elizabeth's prime minister ; another, Lady 
Bacon, the mother and instructress of England's 
great experimental philosopher. The royal pupil 
of the learned Roger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth, 
both by precept and example, encouraged a taste 
for literary pursuits; and it is fair to conclude 
that one reason why the men of that time became 
so distinguished, was because they had help-meet 
in the intelligence of the women of the period. 

Woman was not, however, so successful in 
contributing to, as in the patronage of, literature 

F 2 



68 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

in our land. The first written work by an En- 
glish woman dates as far back as the eighth cen- 
tury *, and is said to be a biographical memoir of 
the lives of St. Willibald and St. Wunebald, 
two devout men, who went on a pilgrimage to 
the Holy Land. The writer was a resident in a 
convent at Heidenheim, and is supposed to have 
been sent there as a missionary, — a way in which 
women were often engaged. Thus early did 
" the gift of narration/' for which women are 
somewhat distinguished, manifest itself. It is, 
however, probable that, for ages, the ruggedness 
of our vernacular language presented an insuper- 
able barrier to extensive original composition; 
and, therefore, we are not surprised that the 
learned women of ancient times should have 
chiefly employed themselves in transcribing and 
translating, which they did to a very considerable 
extent. 

During the fifteenth century one original female 
writer appeared: this was the Lady Juliana 
Berners, sister to Richard Lord Berners, and 
prioress of the nunnery of Sopewell, near St. 
Alban's. Holinshed speaks of her as " a gentle- 
woman endued with excellent gifts of body and 
mind." She wrote, in verse, treatises on Hawking, 



* " Intellectual Condition of Women in England," in the 
Anglo-Saxon times. — Miss H. Lawrence. 



FEMALE WRITERS. 69 

Hunting, and Heraldry ; and her works were held 
in such esteem that they were published when 
printing was first introduced, and a press set up 
at St. Alban's. " The Boke of St. Albany as it 
was called, was published in small folio in 1495, 
some say 1461. There is a doubt whether these 
works were indeed original, or merely translations 
from the French, though the personal love of 
field-sports which characterised Juliana (strangely 
enough, when we consider her sacred calling and 
literary tastes) might be considered strong pre- 
sumptive evidence that they were the genuine 
effusions of her mind. Warton says somewhat 
contemptuously, " From an abbess disposed to 
turn author we might more reasonably have ex- 
pected a manual of meditations for the closet, or 
select rules for making salves, or distilling strong 
waters. But the diversions of the field were not 
thought inconsistent with the character of a reli- 
gious lady of this eminent rank, who resembled 
an abbot in respect of exercising manorial juris- 
diction, and who hawked and hunted in common 
with other ladies of distinction." 

This book was reprinted in the reign of Queen 
Elizabeth, but has become very scarce : Dr. John 
Moore, Bishop of Norwich, had it in his library. 
There is another at Cambridge. The MS. that 
Warton quotes is in the Bodleian Library at 
Oxford. 

F 3 



70 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Margaret Beaufort, tlie patroness of letters 
before named, translated two devotional works 
from the French. She was the third female 
writer that England produced. Her charities 
were as great as her zeal for education ; but 
mistaken zeal and superstition were manifest in 
the regret she expressed that she had not lived at 
the time of the crusades. 

We have seen that Caxton had previously 
printed the works of one female writer, " Chris- 
tina of Pisa, " whose " wise and wholesome 
proverbs " were thought worthy of being trans- 
lated by so accomplished a scholar as Anthony 
Lord Rivers. 

Lady Joanna Lumley, daughter of the Earl of 
Arundel, and wife of Lord Lumley, made some 
translations of Greek orations into Latin, and 
also translated the Iphigenia of Euripides into 
English. The date of her death is not known, 
but it occurred before that of her father in 1579. 

Undoubtedly the most eminent female writer 
of the first half of the sixteenth century was 
Sir Thomas More's daughter, Mrs. Margaret 
Roper. She was the able assistant of her father. 
Latin epistles, orations, and poems, were the 
fashion of the age, and in these she excelled. 
Some treatises of hers were thought equal to 
her father's ; one in particular, " Of the four 
last Things," showed so much judgment and force 
of reasoning, that Sir Thomas More sincerely 



ANNE ASKEW. 71 

protested it was better than a discourse he had 
written upon the same subject, and which in 
consequence he never finished. She translated 
Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History from Greek into 
Latin. This laborious work was afterwards trans- 
lated from Latin into English by her daughter, 
Mary Roper. Dying at the comparatively early age 
of thirty-six, Mrs. Margaret Roper certainly left 
an imperishable name for learning, industry, and 
filial piety. Her daughter, above alluded to, 
inherited her mother's love of learning. Neither 
mother nor daughter, however, left any evidence, 
that they favoured the fast-spreading principles of 
the Reformation. 

In 1545-6, one or two years after the death of 
Mrs. Margaret Roper, a terrible scene was 
witnessed in England. Anne Askew or Ayscough, 
a young woman of great piety and learning, suffered 
martyrdom for her religious opinions. She had 
been a reader of the Bible from her childhood ; 
and the doctrines of the reformers being much 
canvassed, she was able, from her knowledge of 
Scripture, to confirm the truths they taught. 
Domestic trials of a bitter kind mingle with the 
sad history of her sufferings and death for con- 
science' sake. Her eldest sister had been betrothed 
to a Mr. Kyme, a zealous Romanist. The father 
had paid part of his daughter's marriage portion, 
when the death of the young lady released the 

F 4 



72 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

bridegroom elect. The father, not liking to lose 
the portion he had paid, compelled Anne, much 
against her will, to accept the hand of her 
intended brother-in-law, he being nothing loth. 
Though forced into this union, the young wife 
fulfilled her duties in an exemplary manner; but 
dared not violate her conscience by conformity to 
her husband's religious sentiments. This so 
offended him that he drove her violently from his 
house, and denounced her to the priests. She 
came to London to seek the protection of those 
in power who professed to favour the Protestant 
cause. Her husband's malice, seconded by the 
priests, pursued her : she was examined concerning 
her belief, which was found, according to their 
notions, heretical. Imprisonment followed, no 
friend being permitted to speak with her. At 
last a cousin, Mr. Britayne, succeeded in bailing 
her. She was, however, apprehended again, and 
refusing to retract her principles, was put to the 
torture in the hope that she would discover the 
names of some ladies of quality who were of her 
opinion. But though racked until, as she says, 
she " was well-nigh dead," she refused either to 
change her faith or betray her friends, and she 
was then sentenced to be burned. At the very 
stake letters were brought offering her the king's 
pardon if she would recant. Her reply was 



ANNE ASKEW. 73 

simple and steadfast. " That she came not thither 
to deny her Lord and Master." 

The night before her martyrdom she composed 
a hymn which, though rugged, is not only in- 
teresting as one of the earliest poems in our 
language composed by a woman, but for the 
sentiments and the circumstances of the writer. 

THE HYMN ANNE ASKEWE MADE THE NIGHT 
BEFORE HER EXECUTION.* 

Like as an armed knight 

Appointed to the field, 
With this world will I fight, 

And Faith shall be my shield. 

Faith is that weapon strong, 

Which will not fail at need ; 
My foes, therefore, among 

With it will I proceed. 

If Faith be had in strength 
And force of Christ's own way, 

It will prevail at length, 
Though devils all say nay. 

Faith! if the fathers old 

Obtained right witness, 
Will make me very bold, 

To fear not earth's distress. 

I now rejoice in heart, 

And Hope bids me do so ; 
For Christ will take my part, 

And ease me of my woe. 

* These verses are slightly modernized, 



74 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Lord, thou say's t, "Whoso will knock, 
To them will I attend : " 

Therefore undo the lock, 
And thy strong power send. 

Alas ! more enemies, I have 
Than hairs upon my head ; 

Let them not me deprave, 
But fight thou in my stead. 

On Thee my care I cast, 
For all their cruel spite ; 

I care not for their haste, 
Since Thou art my delight. 

Like some, I'll never list, 

My anchor to let fall 
For every drizzling mist — 

My ship's substantial. 

I'm little used to write 
In either prose or rhyme ; 

Yet will I show one sight, 
That I saw in my time. 

I saw a royal throne, 

Where justice ought to sit, 

But in her stead was one, 
Of mighty cruel wit. 

Engulph'd was righteousness, 
As by the raging flood — 

Satan with all eagerness 

Suck'd up the guiltless blood. 

Then thought I, " Jesus, Lord ! 
When thou shalt judge us all, 



ADVANCE OF THE REFORMATION. 75 

Hard is it to record, 

On these men what will fall ! 

"Yet, Lord, I thee desire, 
For that they do to me, 
Let them not taste the hire 
Of their iniquity." 

It is impossible that such women as flourished 
during that age could have lived and died in vain. 
The times, also, were eventful in other matters. 
New regions had been discovered, and the spirit 
of enterprise was strong, while the principles of 
the reformers had spread on every side. The 
seeds sown by Wickliffe two hundred years 
previously, and which had long germinated almost 
imperceptibly, now sprung up and yielded an 
abundant harvest. The scales of ignorance that 
had too long blinded the people, fell off, and their 
eyes were opened. Then came the great era of 
the Reformation, an event scarcely less important 
to literature than to religion, inasmuch as a noble 
literature is likely to be the product of a pure 
and holy faith. 



76 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



CHAP. IV. 

THE REFORMATION, AND THE LITERARY ACTIVITY OF 
ITS ERA. 

Wickliffe's 160 or 200 manuscripts had been 
hunted up and safely burned in England and in 
Bohemia, and their ashes scattered, like those of 
their author, to the four winds of heaven; but 
the spirit in those writings, being the spirit of 
truth, was indestructible, and was destined in due 
time to be embodied in a worthy successor. 

About thirty years after printing was invented 
in Germany, and twelve years after it had been 
introduced into England, Martin Luther was 
born — 

" The solitary monk that shook the world." 

Luther's early personal history is brief but in- 
teresting. Born in poverty at Eisleben, in Sax- 
ony, of honest, intelligent, strict parents ; want 
and work were his inheritance. A mind at once 
strong and active manifested itself, even in child- 
hood ; and the father, poor labourer as he was, 
determined his son should be a scholar. He went 
to the school ; but there learning was made as re- 



LUTHER. 77 

pulsive as possible by a brutal teacher. Still the 
boy persevered ; obtained access ultimately to 
higher schools of learning, though obliged, as the 
custom was, to beg his bread with the poor 
scholars who in Germany used to sing and chant 
before the doors of the benevolent. His mind 
became deeply exercised on the subject of religion, 
He found nothing in the classics or the writings 
of the schoolmen to satisfy the craving of a soul 
that felt its need of a Saviour. At length he fell 
upon an old Latin Bible, and opening on the 
history of Samuel, — the child dedicated by his 
pious mother to the Lord, — he read and read 
again and again. What light was falling on his 
darkened soul ! Still his conversion did not take 
place then. The sudden death of his friend Alexis 
roused him to a deeper sense of his own condition 
as a sinner. " Was he himself prepared to die, if 
so suddenly smitten ? " was a question conscience 
put with terrible distinctness. Soon after a terrific 
thunder-storm placed him in deadly peril. The 
lightning glared in upon Luther's soul, and kindled 
a fire of dread that nothing; but the knowledge of 
a Saviour could appease. Fortunately he knew 
where to get this knowledge. The writings and 
preaching of the cloister were both vain and 
empty : he could not allay his appetite with the 
husks that the swine did eat : but in the neglected 
old book — the Latin version of the Holy Scrip- 



78 SKETCHES OF EXGLISH LITERATURE. 

tures — he found his comfort, his cure, his guide. 
Henceforth he needed no other. Forsaking all 
secular studies, he entered a monastery, and de- 
voted himself to God. 

Think of an earnest spirit full of the divine 
knowledge he had gained, — a faithful preacher of 
Christ, — hearing that Tetzel the monk, in order 
to raise money for the Pope, had come with indul- 
gences from Rome. The very offer to sell people 
the permission to commit sins with impunity was 
an abomination too great to be borne. Tetzel 
was doubtless some such man as " The Pardoner " 
our Chaucer had described and deservedly derided 
150 years before in England. 

Luther did not laugh deridingly, as the poet 
had done ; he denounced, in righteous indignation 
and solemn earnest, the unholy traffic. He 
preached against it. What he preached it behoved 
him to maintain, and to explain also, in writing. 
The matter spread rapidly. Priests were alarmed, 
people were convinced. Then followed examina- 
tions before councils, controversies among scholars 
and divines, and a commotion every where that 
had no precedent. 

In England our king, Henry VIIL, thought 
proper to enter the lists as a disputant, and wrote 
a thesis disproving — or attempting to do so — 
Luther's doctrines ; and the Pope, glad of a 
learned prince as his ally, gave him the title of 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 79 

" Defender of the Faith," which our monarchs yet 
bear. When kings become authors and enter on 
polemics, we are sure that the example will be 
followed. Hence learning, authorship, and the 
study of divinity, became fashionable ; and as any 
thing is better than stagnation, good results fol- 
lowed. Whoever could read, whether men or 
women, entered into the subject: nothing else 
interested them. Henry imagined that, being a 
king, his treatise would be sufficient to crush a 
poor enthusiastic monk. He wrote, it was said, 
with the sceptre. He little knew the spirit of the 
Reformer, and was startled to find that Luther 
replied with a tone as high as his own, and argu- 
ments based only on the Scriptures. Many en- 
deavoured to dissuade Luther from replying to 
Henry, the benignant Melancthon among others. 
But Luther said, " I wo'nt be gentle toward the 
king of England ; I know it is useless to humble 
myself, to compromise, to entreat, and try peace- 
ful measures." He showed that Henry supported 
his statements merely by decrees and doctrines of 
men. " As to me," he says, " I do not cease to 
cry, the Gospel, the Gospel — Christ, Christ." 

The king, incensed, exclaimed, such a heretic 
should perish, — he deserved to be burnt ; and he 
sent an ambassador, with a letter to the Elector, 
and to the Dukes of Saxony, urging some extreme 
measures, saying, " What is this doctrine which 



80 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

he calls evangelical other than the doctrine of 
Wickliffe ? Now, most honoured uncles, I know 
how your ancestors have laboured to destroy it : 
they pursued it as a wild beast in Bohemia, and, 
driving it till it fell into a pit, they shut it in 
there, and barricaded it. You will not, I am 
sure, let it escape through your negligence." 

Henry was about thirty-one when he wrote 
against Luther ; meanwhile his passions were to 
give, ultimately, nearly as great an impetus to 
the Reformation — though from what different 
motives! — as the zeal and faithfulness of Luther. 

Sir Thomas More entered also into the contest, 
and attacked Luther with a coarse ribaldry that 
is in our day utterly unreadable. That so elegant 
a scholar and so virtuous a man could have ever 
written in such a style, is to be explained only on 
the principle that the age was learned but not 
refined, vehement and disputatious rather than 
argumentative ; and that a latitude of expression 
was indulged even by women — virtuous and high- 
born women — that to modern readers is perfectly 
revolting. Yet Sir Thomas More was far be- 
yond his age, and better than his creed, in refer- 
ence to toleration. In his cc Utopia " — a philoso- 
phical romance, in which he supposed the existence 
of a pure and perfect state — he certainly pro- 
pounded the doctrine of freedom of opinion. He 
remarks : " At the first constitution of their 



SIR THOMAS MORE. 81 

government, Utopus having understood, that be- 
fore his coming among them, the old inhabitants 
had been so engaged in great quarrels concerning 
religion, by which they were so divided among 
themselves, that he found it an easy thing to con- 
quer them, since, instead of uniting their forces 
against hiin, every different party in religion fought 
by themselves. After he had subdued them, he 
made a law that every man might be of what 
religion he pleased, and might endeavour to draw 
others to it by the force of argument, and by 
amicable and modest ways, but without bitterness 
against those of other opinions, but that he ought 
to use no other force but that of persuasion, and 
was neither to mix it with reproaches nor violence; 
and such as did otherwise were to be condemned 
to banishment or slavery. 

" This" law made Utopus, not only for pre- 
serving the public peace, which he saw suffered 
much daily contentions and irreconcilable heats, 
but because he thought the interests of religion 
itself required it. And supposing that only one 
religion was really true, and the rest false, he 
imagined that the native force of truth would at 
last break forth and shine bright, if supported only 
by the strength of argument, and attended to with a 
gentle and unprejudiced mind ; while, on the other 
hand, if such debates were carried on with violence 
and tumults, as the most wicked are always the 

G 



82 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

most obstinate, so the best and most holy religion 
might be choked with superstition, as corn is with 
the briars and thorns." 

It is one thing, however, to hold a principle as 
a correct theory, and another to carry it out in 
practice. Sir Thomas More was one of the most 
elegant prose writers of his age, and his works 
were calculated to minister to that love of reading 
which then began to prevail. He perished, as is 
well known, for conscientiously refusing to ac- 
knowledge the king's supremacy ; but his useful 
life helped forward the cause of human improve- 
ment ; and even his opposition to the Reformation 
was overruled by Providence to the aw T akening of 
inquiry and the eliciting of truth. 

Of this period Milton says: — " When I recall 
to mind, at last, after so many dark ages, wherein 
the huge overshadowing train of error had almost 
swept all the stars out of the firmament of the 
church ; how the bright and blissful Reformation, 
by divine power, strook through the black and 
settled night of ignorance and anti-christian 
tyranny ; methinks a sovereign and reviving joy 
must needs rush into the bosom of him that reads 
or hears, and the sweet odour of the returning 
gospel imbathe his soul with the fragrancy of 
heaven. Then was the sacred Bible sought out 
of the dusty corners where profane falsehood and 
neglect had thrown it ; the schools opened ; divine 



HENRY THE EIGHTH. 83 

and human learning raked out of the embers of 
forgotten tongues ; the princes and cities trooping 
apace to the new-erected banner of salvation ; the 
martyrs, with the unresistible might of weakness, 
shaking the powers of darkness, and scorning the 
fierv rao;e of the old red drawn." 

Those who, in reading the lives of the reformers, 
Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and Knox, hold that 
Cranmer was less consistent than these, would do 
well to remember that Henry VIII. was a very 
different potentate to any other the reformers had 
to contend with — a tyrant with sufficient learn- 
ing to make him subtle and dangerous. His idea 
of a reformation was putting down the pope and 
setting up himself. He was for the people reading 
the Scriptures if that led them to ignore the pope's 
supremacy, and to despise monkery ; but if that 
same reading led them to perceive that king 
Henry's life was wrong, why then he took the 
Bible from them, as a dangerous book, unfit for 
their perusal. He devised doctrinal works for the 
people that were to supersede the Bible. One of 
these was entitled, " Articles devised by the King's 
Highness to stablish Quietness and Unity, and to 
avoid contentious Opinions :" another, " A ne- 
cessary Doctrine and Erudicion for any Christian 
Man, set forth by the King's Majesty of England." 
" Henry the Eight by the grace of God Kynge 
of Englande, France, and Irelande, Defendour of the 

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84: SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Fay the, and in earthe of the churche of Englande, 
and also of Xrelande, supreme head ; unto all his 
faythfull and lovyng subiectes sendeth greetyng." 
Then follows a preface of six pages, because the 
humble and holy Harry " perceivyng that in the 
tyme of knowledge, the devyll (who ceasseth not in 
all tymes to vexe the worlde) hath attented to re- 
turn ageyn, (as the parable in the gospel shewith) 
into the hous purged and clensed, accompanied 
with seven worse spirites, and hypocrisie and su- 
perstition beinge excluded and put away, we fynd 
entered into some of our peoples hartes an in- 
clination to sinister under standynge of scripture, 
presumption, arrogancye, carnall libertie, and con- 
tention ; we be therefore constrained for the re- 
formation of theym in tyme, and for advoiding 
of such diversitie in opinions as by the said evill 
spirites might be ingendred to set furth with 
thadvise of our clergie such a doctrine and decla- 
ration of the true knowlage of God and his worde, 
with the principall articles of our relygion, as 
wherby all men may uniformely be ledcle and 
taught the true understandyng of that, which is 
necessary for every christen man to know, for the 
orderyng of himselfe in this lyfe agreeably to the 
will and plesure of Almighty God." 

Meanwhile we know that books and tracts, ex- 
plaining the principles of the reformers, got into 
circulation. Poor Anne Bullen, as yet a merry 



JOAN BOUCHER. 85 

maiden in her father's house — Hever Castle, was 
fond of reading them. Anne Askew, as we have 
before stated, in her happy studious girlhood, at 
Kelsay, in Lincolnshire, with a deeper feeling of 
their truth, was engaged in a similar perusal. And 
in Kent there was another young girl, Joan 
Boucher, who was an inquirer after religious 
truth; and if she did not succeed very clearly in 
explaining to others what her sentiments really 
\yere 3 yet evidently she trusted in Christ and not 
in priests ; and if she could not learnedly dispute 
for her religion, she was willing to die for it ; — 
which she did, three years after the martyrdom 
of Anne Askew. No facts are more significant 
of the spread of a spirit of inquiry, than that, in 
the castle of the nobleman, and the remote house 
of the country gentleman, the young female mem- 
bers of the household should be seeking diligently 
after books, and studying the writings of the 
learned men of the time. 

The pulpit in many places helped this spirit of 
inquiry. The voice of Latimer had sounded in 
the ears of thousands — nay more, had carried 
truth into the inmost recesses of many hearts. 

The persecuting spirit of Henry is manifest not 
only in reference to those who differed from him 
in religion, but to all who aroused his suspicion or 
his envy. Hence the fate of the accomplished 
Earl of Surrey will add, if any thing can add, to 

G 3 



86 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the opprobrium of his name. This young noble- 
man, disliking, probably, the polemics of the times, 
and with an ardent love of poetry and the fine 
arts, visited the land where he could most success- 
fully gratify his taste — Italy. His residence 
there was an annoyance to the king, who de- 
tested the Italians ; and when, on his return to 
his native land, he brought some Italians with 
him, the king believed they came as spies, em- 
ployed by his enemy, Cardinal Pole. The earl's 
relationship to Catherine Howard, the king's frail 
wife, was another offence ; and probably the ac- 
complishments which made Surrey the idol of the 
young and gay stimulated Henry's dislike. He 
pretended that Surrey aspired to the hand of the 
Princess Mary, and on that and other frivolous 
charges, brought this gifted young nobleman to 
the block. 

The Earl of Surrey introduced blank verse 
into our poetic literature ; though he most ad- 
mired the sonnet, and transplanted that graceful 
exotic from Italy to our comparatively rugged 
clime. The Italians have a passionate admiration 
of this little poem, that requires a thought to be 
expressed in fourteen lines. But it was long 
considered that a sonnet on the Italian model was 
unsuited to the genius of our language. Even 
Shakspeare seemed to feel the difficulty of the 
numerous rhymes, and his sonnets are constructed 



EAKL OF SUKREY. 87 

on the plan of three four-line verses of alternate 
rhymes, ending with a couplet. Milton's sonnets 
are perfect in structure. The modern poets, 
male and female, have carried this kind of compo- 
sition to a very high degree of perfection. 

A romantic history attaches to the Earl of 
Surrey. He was called the English Petrarch, 
chiefly because he celebrated the fair Geraldine in 
his sonnets, as Petrarch had celebrated his Laura. 
There was an air of mystery, however, thrown 
over this attachment ; but modern research has 
discovered that the fair Geraldine was the Lady 
Elizabeth Fitzgerald, afterwards the wife of the 
Earl of Lincoln. 

Besides his sonnets, the Earl of Surrey trans- 
lated the second book of Virgil's JEneicl into blank 
verse, and gave a version of the Ecclesiastes. 

His poetical paraphrase of the 7 3rd Psalm is 
interesting as being one of the earliest specimens 
of metrical rendering of the Scriptures : we sub- 
join a few stanzas. 

Quam tonus Israel, Dens. — Psalm lxxiii. 

Thoughe, Lord, to Israeli 

Thy graces plenteous be, 
I meane to such, with pure intent, 

As fix their trust in The ; 

Yet whiles the faith did faynt 

That shold have been my guyde, 
Lyke them that walk in slipper pathes, 

My feet began to slyde : 

G 4 



88 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Whiles I did grudge at those 

That glorey in their golde, 
Whose lothsoni pryde rejoyseth welth 

In quiet as they wolde. 

To se by course of yeres 

What nature doth appere, 
The palayces of princely fourme 

Succede from heire to heire. 

When I behelde their pryde, 

And slackness of thy hand, 
I gan bewaile the wofull state 

Wlierin thy chosen stand ; 

And as I sought wherof 

Thy sufferaunce, Lord, shold groo, 
I found no witt could perce so far, 

Thy holy domes to knoo ; 

And that no mysteryes 

3STor dought could be distrust, 
Till I com to the holly place, 

The mansion of the just ; 

Where I shall se what end 

Thy justice shall prepare, 
For such as buyld on worldly welth, 

And dye their colours faire. 

Oh ! how their ground is false, 
And all their buylding vayne ; 

And they shall fall, their power shall faile 
That did their pryde mayntayne, 
As charged harts with care, M 
That dreme some pleasaunt tourne, 

After their sleape fynd their abuse, 
And to their plaint retourne : 



SPIKIT OF INQUIRY. 89 

So shall their glorye faade ; 

Thy sword of vengeaunce shall 
Unto their dronken eyes in blood 

Disclose their errours all. 

In other succour, then, 

O Lord, why should I trust ; 
But only thyn, whom I have found 

In thy behight so just ? 

And suche for drede or gayne 

As shall thy rianie refuse, 
Shall perishe with their golden godds 

That did their harts seduce ; 

Where 1, that in thy worde 

Have set my trust and joye, 
The hio-h reward that longs thereto 

Shall quietly e enjoy e : 

And my unworthye lypps, 
Inspired with thy grace, 
Shall thus forespeke thy secret works, 
In sight of Adams race. 

Of the mental activity of this period an admirable 
writer* has said of the Reformation, " This event 
gave a mighty impulse and increased activity to 
thought and inquiry, and agitated the inert mass 
of accumulated prejudices throughout Europe. 
The effect of the concussion was general ; but the 
shock was greatest in this country. It toppled 
down the full-grown, intolerable abuses of cen- 

* William Hazlitt's " Lectures on the Literature of the 
Age of Elizabeth." 



90 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

turies at a blow, heaved the ground from under 
the feet of bigoted faith and slavish obedience; 
and the roar and clashing of opinions, loosened 
from their accustomed hold, might be heard like 
the noise of an angry sea, and has never yet 
subsided. Germany first broke the spell of mis- 
begotten fear, and gave the watchword ; but 
England joined the shout and echoed it back with 
her island voice, from her thousand cliffs and 
craggy shores, in a longer and a louder strain. 
With that cry the genius of Great Britain rose 
and threw down the gauntlet to the nations. 
There was a mighty fermentation ; the waters were 
out; public opinion was in a state of projection; 
liberty was held out to all to think and speak the 
truth. Men's brains were busy, their spirits 
stirring, their hearts full, and their hands not 
idle. Their eyes were opened to expect the 
greatest things, and their ears burned with curi- 
osity and zeal to know the truth, that the truth 
might make them free. The death blow that had 
been struck at scarlet vice and bloated hypocrisy 
loosened their tongues, and made the talismans 
and love tokens of popish superstition, with 
which she had beguiled her followers and com- 
mitted abominations with the people, fall harmless 
from their necks. 

" The translation of the Bible was the chief 
engine in the great work. It threw open, by a 



EFFECTS OF THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 91 

secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and 
morality which had been there locked up as in a 
shrine. It revealed the visions of the prophets 
and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers to 
the meanest of the people. It gave them a 
common interest in the common cause. Their 
hearts burned within them as they read. It gave 
a mind to the people by giving them common 
subjects of thought and feeling. It cemented 
their union of character and sentiment. It created 
endless diversity and collision of opinion. It 
found objects to employ their faculties, and a 
motive, in the magnitude of the consequences 
attached to them, to exert the utmost eagerness 
in the pursuit of truth, and the most daring 
intrepidity in maintaining it. Religious contro- 
versy sharpens the understanding by the subtlety 
and remoteness of the topics it discusses, and 
braces the will by their infinite importance. We 
perceive in the history of this period a nervous, 
masculine intellect. ±so levity, no feebleness, no 
indifference ; or if there were, it is a relaxation 
from the intense activity which gives a tone to 
its general character." 

Such were the effects arising from the Bible 
being thrown open to the people of England. It 
was not, however, all at once that they obtained 
that inestimable boon. The importance of the 
subject demands a separate chapter. 



92 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



CHAP. V. 

THE BIBLE AND ITS TRANSLATORS. 

The oldest printed Bible in Europe is that 
known as the Mazarin Bible. The earliest 
practisers or inventors of the art of printing re- 
solved on this great work, and brought it out as 
early as 1455-6, or some assert even earlier. The 
learned historian of the middle ages says, "We 
may see in imagination this venerable and splen- 
did volume leading up the crowded myriads of 
its followers, and imploring as it were a blessing 
on the new art by dedicating its first fruits to 
the service of Heaven."* 

The first English translation of the Bible 
that was printed was set forth in May 6. 1541, 
with a grave and pious preface of Archbishop 
Cranmer, and authorised by the king's (Henry 
VIII.) proclamation. Seconded also with instruc- 
tions from the king iC to prepare the people to re- 
ceive benefit the better from so heavenly a trea- 
sure," it was called "the Bible of the greater 
volume, rather commended than commanded to the 

* "Literature of the Middle Ages," vol. i. p. 151. 



READERS TO THE PEOPLE. 93 

people."* Six of these bibles were chained in 
St. Paul's in convenient places. Those country 
parishes Avho could afford to purchase this pre- 
cious treasure chained it to a desk, and the zeal 
of the people to hear it read was wonderful. Ar- 
tisans and labourers assembled to listen to the 
reading. There might be seen the grey-haired 
sire and the eager youth, the mother hushing her 
awed and wondering children, the feeble grandame 
and the blooming maiden, all silent and intent, 
drinking in the inspired words with thirsty ears. 
Nor was it only within the building that the 
Bible was read. The spacious porch of many a 
country church would hold a goodly gathering, 
who, surrounding the reader, would listen perhaps 
all the more intently that it was not a mere 
formal service. 

The clergy were not the only readers to the 
people. Any man who could read (the attain- 
ment was rare then among the people of England) 
was pressed into this sacred service. What a new 
tide of life was flowing in upon them as they lis- 
tened! Not long before, they had been constrained 
to listen to an unintelligible formula in a foreign 
language. This was the only utterance they had 
heard associated with the worship of the Most 
High ; and the rapid and prosy homily that suc- 

* Fullers ;; Church History," book vii. p. 387. 



94 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

ceecled was nearly as empty and unsatisfactory. 
Now it was not dead but living words that vibrated 
through them, quickening the pulse of the most 
supine, softening the most hardened, comforting 
the sad, instructing the ignorant. There was a 
portion for all : truths so simple that " the way- 
faring man, though a fool, need not err therein," 
— truths so forcible, that they were " as a hammer 
breaking the rocky heart in twain," — truths so 
tender, that the mourner felt, " as one whom his 
mother comforteth, even so the Lord comforteth 
his people," — truths so encouraging, that they 
called, saying, " Whosoever will, let him come and 
drink of the water of life freely," — truths so just, 
and equal, and spiritual, that they announced there 
remained " no more bond or free, male or female, 
but all are one in Christ Jesus." 

The influence that this book had upon the 
people may be inferred from an interesting ac- 
count of William Maiden, inserted in Strype's 
"Memorials of Cranmer." " When the king first 
allowed the Bible to be set forth to be read in 
churches, immediately several poor men in the town 
of Chelmsford, in Essex, where his father lived, and 
he was born, bought the New Testament, and on 
Sundays sat reading of it in the lower end of the 
church. Many would flock about them to hear 
their reading ; and he (William Maiden), among 
the rest, being then but fifteen years old, came 



WILLIAM MALDEN. 95 

every Sunday to hear the glad and sweet tidings 
of the Gospel. But his father, observing it once, 
fetched him away angrily, and would have him to 
say the Latin Matins with him, which grieved 
him much. This put him upon the thoughts of 
learning to read English, that so he might read 
the New Testament himself, which, when he had 
by diligence effected, he and his father's apprentice 
bought the New Testament, joining their stocks 
together ; and to conceal it laid it under the straw 
bed, and read it at convenient times. One night, 
his father being asleep, he and his mother chanced 
to discourse concerning the crucifix, and the form 
of kneeling down to it, and knocking on the breast 
and holding up the hands to it when it came by 
in procession. This, he told his mother, w T as plain 
idolatry against the commandment of God, where 
he saith, < Thou shalt not make any graven image, 
nor bow down to it, nor worship it.' His mo- 
ther, enraged at him for this, said, c Wilt thou not 
worship the cross which was about thee when thou 
wert christened, and must be laid on thee when 
thou art dead? ' In this heat the mother and son 
departed, and went to their beds. The sum of this 
evening's conference she presently repeats to her 
husband, which he, impatient to hear, and boiling 
in fury against his son for denying the worship 
due to the cross, rose up forthwith, and goes into 
his son's chamber, and, like a mad zealot, taking 



96 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, 

him by the hair of his head, pulled him out of the 
bed and whipped him unmercifully. And when 
the young man bore this beating with a kind of 
joy, considering it was for Christ's sake,, and shed 
not a tear, his father, seeing that, was more 
enraged, and ran down and fetched an halter and 
put it about his neck, saying he w r ould hang him. 
At length, with much entreaty of the mother and 
brother, he left him half dead." 

Coverdale and Tyndale were the translators of 
this Bible. They had removed to the continent 
in order to enjoy greater opportunities of study 
and facilities for printing and publishing the great 
work on which they w r ere engaged. At Antwerp 
Tyndale was seized as a heretic and imprisoned, 
and though great efforts were made in his favour, 
it was in vain. He was condemned, first strangled, 
and his remains burned near Antwerp. So great 
was his zeal, learning, and intrepidity, that he was 
styled the Apostle of England. This translation 
of the Bible was corrected by John Rogers, the 
compiler of the Child's Primer, afterwards a dis- 
tinguished divine in king Edward's reign, and the 
first who was doomed to the stake in Mary's time. 

We have seen, however, that king Henry 
thought proper to interdict the Bible, after it had 
once been allowed, — an interdict more likely to 
make the people ponder the words they had heard, 
and to sharpen their anxiety to have this treasure 



TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 97 

again restored to them. An imprisoned thought 
once set at liberty can never be recaptured. 

The next translation of the Bible was given out 
in the reign of Edward VI., in 1549, and another 
edition two years later, neither of them divided 
into verses ; and a third in the reign of Elizabeth. 
The latter was called "the Bishops' Bible," in 
consequence of its having been elaborately cor- 
rected by the learned divines of that time ; and it 
was substantially the same as that printed in 
James's time. It must, however, be remembered, 
that Elizabeth, on her accession to the throne, was 
far from willing that the laity and common people 
should have the Scriptures. Like her father, she 
preferred thinking for the people in matters of 
Faith, rather than permitting them to think for 
themselves. This was manifested when, on her re- 
leasing some prisoners at her coronation, Sir John 
Rainsforth (a kind of privileged buffoon), being 
set on by others, said, " That now this good time, 
when prisoners were delivered, four prisoners, 
amongst the rest, mought have their liberty, who 
were like enough to be kept still in hold." The 
queen asked u who they were ? " and he said, 
66 Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who had long 
been imprisoned in the Latin tongue, and now he 
desired they mought go abroad among the people 
in English." The Queen answered, with a grave 
countenance : " It were good, Rainsforth, they 

H 



98 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

were spoken with themselves,, to know of them 
whether they would be set at liberty. " * 

The last translation, in the reign of James, was 
the work of forty-seven learned men, resident at 
Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge, divided 
into six companies, and having select portions 
assigned them ; the king drawing up directions 
for their all meeting to confer on any doubtful 
and difficult passage, and also sending a notifica- 
tion to all who were skilful in the tongues to send 
in their observations to the company. " The 
Bishops' Bible" was to be followed, principally, 
in the translation ; but the other translations, — 
Tyndale's, Coverdale's, Matthew's, Whitchurch's, 
and Geneva, — when they agreed better with the 
text. This translation was begun in 1607, and 
completed 1611. 

The division of the Bible into chapters was the 
work of Cardinal Hugo de Sacto Caro, in the 
thirteenth century, about the year 1250. The 
division of the New Testament into verses was 
made by Robert Stephens, a printer, 1551. He 
made this division, it is said, while he was tra- 
velling on the Continent, as the amusement of his 
leisure. A fact that has caused some comment : 
that so important a work should have been executed 
by a travelling printer ; but it must ever be borne 

* Bacon. 



THE BIBLE THE RULE OF FAITH. 99 

in mind that the early printers were men of eru- 
dition, and that the art of printing undoubtedly 
then ranked nearly on a level with the liberal 
professions, the greatest scholars thinking it no 
dishonour to be correctors of the press. The 
division of the Hebrew Bible into verses was 
made by Athias, a learned Jew of Amsterdam, 
in 1661. The Bible that was published in 1611 
underwent a most rigid scrutiny and correction in 
1769, and from this last corrected edition our ordi- 
nary modern Bible is taken. 

Thus, at length, the great truth that Wick- 
liffe had enunciated more than 240 years be- 
fore, — that the Scriptures alone were the rule of 
faith, and that the people ought to have them, 
an opinion he maintained by diligently translating 
them ; — at length this truth triumphed. The 
people of England had the Bible. The struggle 
had been long ; and during the last sixty-six or 
seventy years, — that is, from the time that Henry 
put forth, and then withdrew, the Scriptures, — 
the contest had been severe; but at length the 
victory was won. The progress of mind in every 
department of mental effort during that period 
of struggle, furnishes the most important and inte- 
resting section of our literary history. 



h 2 



100 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



CHAP. VI. 

THE BIBLE. ITS LITERARY INFLUENCE. 

The spiritual influence of the Bible is a theme so 
vast and various that the wisest might say, — 
" Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, I can- 
not attain unto it." Its literary influence, how- 
ever, can very distinctly be traced even in works 
of a general and popular character. It was not 
only the divine and the scholar that felt this in- 
fluence, the rays of this divine light kindled the 
poet's mind. How could it be otherwise ? What 
were the epics of classic antiquity ? The quarrels 
and battles of wrangling princes, and the interfer- 
ence of gods and goddesses all of whom were of the 
earth, earthy. What were the pastorals, the satires, 
the histories, the odes, the orations, of Greek and 
Latin writers when compared with the records of 
the Bible ? Here were histories the most graphic 
and affecting, odes the most sublime, prophecies 
the most marvellous, epics the most perfect, pas- 
torals the most lovely, biographies the most in- 
teresting, arguments the most powerful, sermons 
the most simple, speeches the most impressive, 
proverbs the most pithy, letters the most forcible : 



LITERARY INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE. 101 

every form of composition had here its accurate 
model. 

The epic, in the book of Job. 

The dramatic, in Esther, and Joseph, and Ruth. 

The historical, in the writings of Moses, Samuel, 
and Ezra. 

The lyric, in the divine odes of David. 

The didactic and pastoral, in the writings of 
Solomon. 

The philosophic and argumentative, in the ora- 
tions and letters of Paul. 

The tender and simple, in the words and lessons 
of Him who " spake as never man spake." 

To say nothing of the grand prophetic utterances 
that cannot be classified; the "wild seraphic fire" 
that brought down to earth the light and glow of 
heaven. The influence of this book of books upon 
the mind (apart from the soul) is manifest in the fact, 
that from the time the Bible be^an to be tolerably 
w T ell known we have had a rich and copious national 
literature. And while too often it has happened 
that the gifted have been content with the mere 
literary and poetic beauty of the one marvellous 
book ; and have fulfilled the inspired words, that 
the real meaning of " these things were hid from 
the wise and prudent ; " still it is interesting 
and instructive to trace the mental benefits it 
conferred. 

The greatest divines that England has pro- 

H 3 



102 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

duced appeared either during the period when the 
Bible was obtaining its freedom of the realm, or 
very soon after. Hooker, Bishop Hall, Jewel, 
Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Beveridge, Fuller — what 
an influence their works must have had in eluci- 
dating Scripture ! Hooker, by his ee Ecclesiastical 
Polity ; " Hall, by his admirable " Contempla- 
tions ; " Taylor, by his rich, eloquent, and poetic 
disquisitions; Beveridge, by his "Private Thoughts 
upon Keligion and a Christian Life ; " Fuller by 
his quaint yet admirable " Church History." 

That age also gave us in the writings of Isaac 
Walton some biographies that for graphic power 
and elegant simplicity have never been surpassed. 
The lives of Hooker, of Dr. Donne, of George 
Herbert, and others, will remain monuments of 
the cheerful piety and the tender reverence of 
Walton himself, as much as a worthy testimony 
of departed excellence. 

The maxim of St. Paul, " Prove all things," 
was applied by a philosopher of that age to secular 
studies : and it would be difficult to exaggerate 
the benefit England has derived from the carrying 
out of that maxim. The great Lord Bacon 
taught that physical science should test and de- 
monstrate all it asserts ; and that could only be 
done by experiment. Before his time scholars 
had not used their own senses to investigate the 
laws and properties of matter, but had taken the 



LORD BACON. 103 

testimony of ancient philosophers (particularly 
Aristotle), and repeated them from age to age. 
Lord Bacon was the first to show the fallacy of 
such a plan. He held the sayings and teachings 
of the ancients at their true value ; as stimulants, 
not sedatives. What they knew was to be sug- 
gestive of greater progress to their descendants. 
The laws of morals, he knew, were revealed in 
Scripture, and might be capable of an infinite 
variety of elucidation and application, but of no 
addition. The laws of matter were hidden in the 
great volume of nature, and required that man 
should be a patient reader for himself, trusting 
his own eyes and not another's. Ko man more 
admirably showed that the strength and affection 
with which people cleave to precedent merit the 
strong term — Idolatry. 

44 Before laying down the rules to be followed in his new, 
or inductive process, Bacon enumerated the causes of error 
which he divided into four sets, and distinguished, accord- 
ing to the fashion of the times, by the following fanciful but 
expressive names : — 

Idols of the Tribe. 

Idols of the Den. 

Idols of the Forum. 

Idols of the Theatre. 
The idols of the tribe, are the causes of error founded on 
human nature in general. Thus all men have a propensity to 
find in nature a greater degree of order, simplicity, and regu- 
larity, than is actually indicated by observation. This pro- 
pensity, usually distinguished by the title spirit of system, is 

H 4 



104 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

one of the greatest enemies to its progress that science has 
to struggle with. 

" The idols of the den, are those that sprung from the pecu- 
liar character of the individual. Each individual, accord- 
ing to Bacon, has his own dark cave or den, into which the 
light is imperfectly admitted, and in the obscurity of which 
an idol lurks, at whose shrine the truth is often sacrificed. 
Some minds are best adapted to catch the differences, others 
the resemblances of things, some proceed too rapidly, others 
too slowly. Almost every person has acquired a partiality 
for some branch of science, to which he is prone to fashion 
and force every other. 

" The idols of the forum, are those which arise out of the 
intercourse of society, and especially from language, by 
means of which men communicate with each other. It is 
well known that words in some measure govern thought, 
and that we cannot think accurately unless we are able to 
express ourselves accurately. The same word does not 
convey the same idea to different persons. Hence many 
disputes are merely verbal, though the disputants may not 
be aware of the circumstance. 

" The idols of the theatre, are the deceptions which have 
taken their rise from the systems of different schools of phi- 
losophy. These errors affected the philosophy of the an- 
cients more than that of the moderns. But they are not 
yet without their effect, and often act powerfully upon in- 
dividuals without their being aware of the effect." * 

The poets of this period might be said to emu- 
late the divines in grandeur, copiousness, and 
variety. Never have there been so many great 

* Sketch of the Progress of Physical Science by Dr. 
Thomas Thomson. 



SHAKESPEARE. 105 

names — never has the splendour of the greatest 
so dimmed the brilliancy of contemporaries. 
There is one man among poets whom Ave call our 
national bard. The greatness of Shakspeare's 
name causes the general reader to think of him 
as the sole poet of the time. But it was an 
age of great poets, and it increases, if any thing 
can increase, the splendour of Shakspeare's 
triumph, that he w r rote in an age when genius 
of every kind was most prolific. 

Shakspeare had, as his immediate predecessors 
and contemporaries, thirty-eight dramatic poets. 

The literary influence of the Bible is to be 
traced in the writings (though its spiritual in- 
fluence is little seen in the lives) of nearly all the 
dramatic poets of the time. 

It is characteristic of the manners and mental 
circumstances of the age that most of the poets 
were dramatic writers. Books, though much mul- 
tiplied comparatively with preceding times, were, 
however, the luxury of the cultivated few rather 
than the food of the uneducated many. A reading 
public did not exist. Oral communication w r as 
the only means of influencing the people ; so that 
the stage for the poet was long thought as appro- 
priate as the pulpit for the divine. The monks 
of the middle ages had first given the people a 
taste for theatrical amusements. They repre- 
sented what they called mysteries and moralities, — 



106 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 

subjects generally taken from Scripture histories, 
interwoven often with heterogeneous and profane 
incidents. " The creation of the world," " The in- 
carnation and life of the Redeemer," &c, were 
favourite representations. A kind of heathen 
Saturnalia mixed up with these shows, and the 
union of the names of heathen gods and goddesses 
with apostles and saints, made a jumble in the 
minds of the spectators that effectually prevented 
their having any clear idea of the Scripture in- 
cidents so miserably deformed, mutilated, and 
desecrated. Coventry was very celebrated in 
the middle ages for these miracle plays. 

It often happened that the opportunity of thus 
assembling the people together afforded means 
for spreading disaffection among them, and 
creating political disquietude. In the reign of 
Edward the Sixth, the Papists made use of the 
stage as a means of counteracting the spread of 
the Reformation ; and (August 6th, 1549, 3d of 
Ed. VI.,) an act was passed prohibiting plays in 
the English language from being enacted. A 
hundred years later the dreadful licentiousness 
and corrupting tendencies of the stage caused a 
similar prohibition. But parliamentary enact- 
ments are a very doubtful means of promoting 
morality or checking vice. The intelligence and 
correct feeling of the people themselves are most 
to be relied on, more particularly the spread of 



COARSENESS OF KING JAMES'S TIMES. 107 

correct religious knowledge. " For our weapons 
are not carnal but spiritual, and powerful to the 
pulling down of strongholds." 

A significant fact, that prevents the necessity 
of many arguments on the tendency of dramatic 
representations is afforded to us, when we find 
that the licentious and seductive dramas of Ben 
Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher were far 
more popular than the purer compositions of 
Shakspeare. The expressions of that age were 
dreadfully coarse. When we think of Queen Eliza- 
beth swearing " her usual oath," and that the or- 
dinary ejaculations with which she interlarded her 
discourse were such as could not be quoted in the 
present time, we may feebly imagine what must 
have been the general manners. A still greater 
impurity prevailed in the reign of James I. The 
evil was not restricted to profane words, but ma- 
nifested itself in indecorous actions. The masks 
represented at court in honour of the visit of the 
King of Denmark, brother to Anne, the wife 
of James, where the most revolting intemper- 
ance characterised the scene, sufficiently attest 
the grovelling taste of the period. The Divine 
maxim, " Swear not at all," and indeed the Scrip- 
ture generally as a rule of life, was constantly 
violated, and the poets too often ministered to 
the follies rather than corrected the evil of the 
time. And the very best justification of some 



108 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

of the severe denunciations of the Puritans in the 
succeeding time against the stage is found in the 
fact, that the very titles of some of the plays of 
the old dramatists are too coarse to be quoted. 

During this period we had some valuable con- 
tributions to our historical literature. The first 
printed piece of the history of England had issued 
from the press of Caxton, commonly called 
6i Caxton's Chronicles/' written by Douglas, a 
monk of Glastonbury, and coming down to the 
accession of Edward IV. 

In 1518, Robert Fabyan, an alderman of Lon- 
don, published his " New Chronicles of England 
and France." He may be considered the father of 
English historians. In the reign of Henry VIII., 
there are two historical works, — Rastell's " Pas- 
time of People," and Sir Thomas More's " Pitiful 
Life of Edward V.," containing the murder of the 
princes in the Tower, an epitome of English 
history. In 1548, the second year of Edward VI., 
Thomas Hall wrote " The Union of the two 
Noble and Illustrious Families of Lancaster and 
York ; " which work, the author dying before its 
publication, was printed and edited by Grafton, 
an eminent printer of the time. 

A more laborious and useful writer than these 
was Ralph Hollingshed, who employed twenty- 
four years in writing his ci Chronicles of Eng- 
land, Scotland, and Ireland," in two folio volumes. 



FOX, CRAXMER, HOOKER, TAYLOR. 109 

Sir Walter Raleigh belongs to this period. 
His " History of the World " is not only valuable 
of itself, but, as the product of his prison-hours, 
has an interest apart from the instruction it 
conveys. 

To these names must be added Fox, the mar- 
tyrologist, whose terrible record of popish perse- 
cution in the " Acts and Monuments " has been 
said c - to have "confirmed the Reformation." The 
chronicles of Speed and Stowe, published in the 
reign of James L, became very popular ; and it 
is interesting to the people of England to know 
that two men of humble rank (both tailors) made 
faithful and learned contributions to our historical 
literature. 

Indeed, the history of some of the most emi- 
nent men in every department of mind in that 
age is gratifying as a proof, that the right em- 
ployment of talents, rather than the mere ac- 
cidents of birth and wealth, ennobles its possessor. 
Cranmer, Hooker, Taylor, were all born in humble 
life, as was Shakspeare. Of these it may be 
said, — 

" They hold the rank no king can give, 
ISTo station can disgrace : 
Mature puts forth her gentlemen, 
And monarchs must give place." 

The female poets of this time were all inclined 
most to devotional themes. Mary Sydney, 



110 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Countess of Pembroke, assisted her distinguished 
brother, Sir Philip Sydney, in a metrical version 
of the Psalms of David. Lady Mary Worth, also 
a Sydney, niece of Sir Philip, was the authoress 
of "Urania, or the Soul's praying Robes." Queen 
Elizabeth had an ambition to be considered a poet, 
but her crown dazzled her contemporaries more 
than her poetic genius, otherwise they never 
would have dignified her hard cold rhymes with 
the name of poetry.* 

The following lines, by Lady Elizabeth Carew, 
are not only superior to the effusions of most 
female writers of that age, but have also great 
delicacy of thought and justness of sentiment. 
Bible truth is very manifest in her stanzas. 

FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 

The fairest action of our human life 

Is scorning to revenge an injury : 

For who forgives without a farther strife, 

His adversary's heart to him doth tie ; 

And its a firmer conquest truly said, 

To win the heart than overthrow the head. 

If we a worthy enemy do find, 

To yield to worth it must be nobly done ; 

But if of baser metal be his mind, 

In stern revenge there is no honour won ; 



* For specimens of the poetry by female writers of the 
time, see Dyce"s 'Specimens of English Poetesses." 



LADY ELIZABETH CARE^V. Ill 

Who would a worthy courage overthrow ? 
And who would wrestle with a worthless foe ? 

We say our hearts are great and cannot yield. 
Because they cannot yield it proves them poor ; 
Great hearts are task'd beyond their power but seld, 
The weakest lion will the loudest roar ; 
Truth's school for certain doth this same allow, 
High heartedness doth sometimes teach to bow. 

A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn ; 

To scorn to owe a duty overlong, 

To scorn to be for benefits forborn, 

To scorn to lie, to scorn to do a wrong, 

To scorn to bear an injury in mind, 

To scorn a free-born heart slave-like to bind. 

But if for wrongs we needs revenge must have, 
Then be our vengeance of the noblest kind. 
Do we his body from our fury save, 
And let our hate prevail against our mind ? 
What can against him greater vengeance be, 
Than make his foe more worthy far than he ? 

Had Mariana scorned to leave a due unpaid, 
She would to Herod then have paid her love, 
And not have been by sullen passion swayed. 
To fix her thoughts : all injury above 
Is virtuous pride. Had Mariam thus been proud, 
Long famous life to her had been allowed. 

From Chorus in Act IV. of Mariam, 



112 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



FEMALE VIRTUE. 

'Tis not enough for one that is a wife 
To keep her spotless from an act of ill ; 
But from suspicion she should free her life, 
And bare herself of power as well as will. 
'Tis not so glorious for her to be free, 
As by her proper self restrained to be. 

When she hath spacious ground to walk upon, 
Why on the ridge should she desire to go ? 
It is no glory to forbear alone 
Those things that may her honour overthrow ; 
But 'tis thankworthy, if she will not take 
All lawful liberties for honour's sake. 

Chorus of Act III, of Mariam. 



SPENSER. 113 



CHAP. VII 

SPENSER AND SHARSPEARE, AND THEIR POETIC CONTEM- 
PORARIES. 

As the influence of Italy is to be traced in the 
mental history of Chaucer, so is it equally mani- 
fest in that of the Earl of Surrey, to whom we have 
already adverted, and in Spenser. Surrey was 
called the English Petrarch, Spenser also was de- 
signated the English Ariosto. The " Orlando 
Furioso" of the distinguished Italian went through 
sixty editions in the sixteenth century. Its story 
of knightly achievements and chivalrous gallantry 
was peculiarly agreeable at a time when the 
romantic traditions and heroics of the institutions 
of chivalry were rendered more bewitching and 
seductive by the halo of antiquity that began to 
spread around them. Spenser ministered to this 
taste by adopting the machinery of knight errantry, 
and the sentiments of chivalry, in his wonderful 
poem of the "Faery Queen." His descriptive 
powers and his moral purpose have been admitted 
by all critics. Even those who disliked his alle- 
gory as too involved and his descriptions as too 
tedious, do justice to the beauty and variety of 
his pictures and the moral purpose of his stanzas. 

I 



114 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITEEATURE. 

Of his Italian model — Ariosto, Dry den says, — 
et he neither designed justly, nor observed any 
unity of action, or compass of time, or moderation 
in the vastness of his draught : his style is lux- 
urious, without majesty or decency ; and his 
adventures are without the compass of nature 
and possibility."* Some of these faults have been 
ascribed to Spenser, but his beauties so far out- 
number his defects, that it is difficult to find the 
latter, while the former lie thick on every page. 

He intended to personify the cardinal virtues in 
his great poem ; and therefore there is no regular 
hero or consecutive narrative. Each book, as 
" Temperance," " Chastity," " Magnificence," &c. 
has a separate hero or heroine intended to embody 
the virtue he wishes to present. 

The finest of the six books is the first. There 
the Red Cross Knight is the Militant Christian, 
beloved by Una, the true Church, and seduced 
by Deussa, the type of Popery; and when reduced 
to despair, he is rescued by Una, assisted by Faith, 
Hope, and Charity. Yet, while this is the meaning, 
the poem may be, and often is, read without any 
reference to the allegory, simply for its exquisite 
beauty. 

The chief difficulty to a modern reader arises 
from the fact that Spenser did not write the 

* Dryden's dedicatory Letter to the Earl of Dorset, pre- 
fixed to his translation of Juvenal. 



SPENSEK. 1 1 5 

poetic language of his own time, but imitated a 
more ancient style. He was a profound admirer 
of Chaucer, and chose to use many words of that 
earlier period : so that when we compare his 
verse with that of Shakspeare, his great contem- 
porary, it is difficult to think that they both lived 
in the same age. 

Spenser enriched our poetic literature with a 
new measure, to which his name has been given, 
and in which he composed his " Faery Queen." 
The Spenserian Stanza is borrowed from the 
Italian Ottave Rime, or stanza of eight lines of 
Tasso and Ariosto. To these eight lines, a ninth 
is added in the English measure. It is re- 
markable that many poets of the succeeding age 
disliked and condemned the stanza of Spenser 
as multiplying difficulties by the recurrence of 
so many similar rhymes in one verse. Modern 
taste, however, has concurred with Spenser. 
Thomson wrote his "Castle of Indolence" (his 
best, though not his most popular poem) in this 
stanza ; as did Beattie his " Minstrel," Mrs. 
Tighe her " Psyche," Mrs. Hemans her " Forest 
Sanctuary," Lord Byron his " Childe Harold." 
Many living poets have also adopted it, and by 
their triumphs have entirely vindicated Spenser 
from the charge of having introduced a cumber- 
some and difficult measure unsuited to our lan- 



I 2 



116 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The "Faery Queen," long as it is, is but a 
fragment: six books are said to have been lost 
or destroyed when the poet escaped from Ireland. 
The incidents of Spenser's life are most affecting. 
Queen Elizabeth, who was not insensible to the 
honour of being celebrated by so exquisite a poet, 
had patronised him. One of her few acts cf 
munificence was that of ordering him a sum 
of money ; which her treasurer, Lord Burleigh, 
knowing her usual economy, and having no sym- 
pathy himself with poets, ventured to grumble at, 
saying " so much for a song ! " Few things in 
Elizabeth's personal history redound more to her 
honour than that gift. Subsequently the poet 
had a grant of three thousand acres of land in 
the county of Cork. Here he wrote his great 
allegorical poem. The rebellion of the Earl of 
Tyrone broke out, and Kilcolman Castle, the 
residence of Spenser, was burned, he, his wife and 
family, escaping in such haste and peril, that his 
infant child was left behind, and perished in the 
flames. The poet never recovered this calamity : 
he returned to England broken in heart and for- 
tune, and died a year after. 

No genuine lovers of descriptive poetry will com- 
plain at the absence of unity in the design of the 
"Faery Queen," they will read on and on, forgetful 
of every thing but the exceeding beauty of the 
descriptions. Indeed, it is evident that Spenser 



SPENSER. 117 

never intended to fetter himself with a distinct 
narrative, but followed on wherever imagination 
led him, exclaiming — 

" The ways through which my weary steps I guide, 
In this delightful land of Faerie, 
Are so exceeding spacious and wide : 
And sprinkled with such sweet variety 
Of all that pleasant is, to ear or eye ; 
That I, nigh ravished with rare thought's delight, 
My tedious travel do forget thereby ; 
And when I 'gin to feel decay of might, 
It strength to me supplies ; and cheers my dulled 
sprite." 

Spenser's two poems of Heavenly Love, and 
Heavenly Beauty, abound in passages the Christian 
must delight in. James Montgomery, indeed, says, 
that these contain the germ of Milton's " Great 
Argument." * The following description is pe- 
culiarly fine of 

WISDOM. 

"There in his bosom Sapience J doth sit, 
The sovereign darling of the Deity ; 
Clad like a queen in royal robes, most fit 
For so great power and peerless majesty, 
And all with gems and jewels gorgeously 
Adorn'd, that brighter than the stars appear, 
And make her native brightness seem more clear. 



* Montgomery's Christian Poet. f Wisdom. 

i 3 



118 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" Both Heaven and Earth obey unto her will, 
And all the creatures which they both contain ; 
For of her fulness which the world doth fill, 
They all partake, and do in state" remain, 
As their great Maker did at first ordain, 
Through observation of her high behest, 
By which they first were made, and still increast. 

" The fairness of her face no tongue can tell, 
For she the daughters of all woman's race, 
And angels too, in beautie doth excel, 
Befiected on her from God's glorious face, 
And more increased by her own goodly grace, 
That it doth far exceed all human thought, 
Nor can on earth compared be to ought. 

" Let angels which her goodly face behold, 
And see at will, her sovereign praises sing ; 
And those most sacred mysteries unfold, 
Of that fair love of mighty heaven's King ; 
Enough is me to admire such heavenly thing, 
And being thus with her huge love possest, 
In only wonder of herself to rest. 

" But whoso may, thrice happy man him hold 
Of all on earth, whom God so much doth grace, 
And lets his own beloved * to behold ; 
For in the view of that celestial face 
All joy, all bliss, all happiness have place. 
Nor aught on earth can want unto the wight, 
Who of herself can win that wishful sight. 



* Christ "the wisdom of God." 



SPEXSER. 119 

" Ah then, my hungry soul ! which long hast fed 
On idle fancies of thy foolish thought, 
And with false beauties' flattering bait misled, 
Hast after vain deceitful shadows sought, 
Which all have fled, and now have left thee nought 
But late repentance through thy follies brief ; 
Ah ! cease to gaze on matter of thy grief. 

" And look at last up to*that sovereign light, 
From whose pure beams all perfect beauty springs, 
That kindleth love in every godly sprite, 
Even the love of God, which loathing brings 
Of this vile world, and these gay seeming things ; 
With whose sweet pleasures being so possest, 
Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest." 

Some idea of the linked sweetness long drawn 
out of Spenser's style in his favourite stanza, may 
be gathered from his description of 

AERIAL MUSIC. 

" Eftsoons they heard a most melodious sound 
Of all that might delight a dainty ear, 
Such as, at once, might not on living ground, 
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere : 
Eight hard it was for wight that did it hear, 
To weet what manner music that might be, 
For all that pleasing is to living ear 
Was there consorted in one harmony ; 
Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree. 

" The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade, 
Their notes unto the voice attempered sweet ; 
i 4 



120 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Th' angelical soft trembling voices, made 
To th' instruments divine respond ence meet ; 
The silver sounding instruments did meet 
With the base murmur of the water's fall ; 
The water's fall, with difference discreet, 
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ; 
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all." 

Sir Philip Sydney, the ,friend and patron of 
Spenser, was in the court of Queen Elizabeth 
what the accomplished Earl of Surrey had been 
in that of her father — the glass of fashion and 
the mould of form. His poetry, however, is not 
read except by the antiquarian. Two faults pre- 
vent the modern reader enjoying it — length and 
artificiality. That was the age, notwithstanding all 
its literary greatness, of quaint conceits and artificial 
terms. A plain answer to a plain question was 
rarely returned in that luxuriant and imaginative 
time ; and Sir Philip Sydney's " Arcadia " is full 
of this peculiarity, which would weary even in a 
short work, but is oppressive when it goes through 
five hundred folio pages. His essay in u Defence 
of Poesy " is more read in the present day than any 
other of his writings ; and deservedly, for it ranks in 
beauty, and power, and completeness with Milton's 
essay on " Unlicensed Printing," and Foster's on 
" Decision of Character." In his " Defence of 
Poesy" he mourns that "poesy thus embraced in 
all other places, should only find in our time a bad 
welcome in England." After excepting Sackville, 



SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. 121 

Surrey, and Spenser, he says he does not "remember 
to have seen many more that have poetical sinews in 
them. For proof whereof, let but most of the verses 
be put into prose, and then ask the meaning, and it 
will be found that one verse did but beget another, 
without ordering at first which should be at the 
last; which becomes a confused mass of words 
with a tinkling sound of rhyme, barely accom- 
panied with reason." Is our age free from that 
charge ? The following sonnet, both in sentiment 
and structure, is a favourable specimen of the 
poetry of this illustrious man, whose life closed 
early, slain as he was, in his thirty-second year, at 
the battle of Zutphen. 



FAREWELL TO SPLENDID FOLLIES. 

;i Leave me, Love ! which reaclietli but to dust ; 
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things ; 
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust ; 
Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings. 
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might 
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedom's be ; 
"Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light 
That doth both shine, and give us sight to see. 
Oh ! take fast hold, let that light be thy guide 
In this small course which birth draws out of death ; 
And think how ill becometh him to slide, 
Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath. 
Then farewell world! thine uttermost I see ; 
Eternal love, maintain thy life in me." 



122 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

So much has been said and written, enthu- 
siastically, variously, reverentially, and accurately 
of Shakspeare, that nothing new can be added to 
the full-voiced testimony. What power he re- 
ceived from nature has been beautifully sketched 
by the poet Gray. 

" Far from the sun and summer gale, 
In thy green lap * was nature s darling laid : 
What time, where lucid Avon strayed, 
To him the mighty mother did unveil 
Her awful face : the dauntless child, 
Stretch'd forth his little arms and smil'd. 
This pencil take, she said, whose colours clear 
Richly paint the vernal year : 
Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal boy ! 
This can unlock the gates of joy ; 
Of horror, that, and thrilling fears ; 
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears." 

Shakspeare's obligations to revelation have not 
been so carefully traced; and yet it is clearly 
capable of proof, that the ethics of our great poet 
were founded on an intimate knowledge of Scrip- 
ture. The obligations of literature to the Bible are 
nowhere more manifest than in many of the national 
bard's writings. What a compendium of evange- 
lical truth is folded up in the brief lines — 

" Why, all the souls that are, were forfeit once ; 
And he that might the Vantage best have took, 
Found out the remedy." 



* Britain's. 



SHAKSPEARE. 123 

The following, selected from a multitude, afford 
full proof of Scripture influence. 

RELIANCE ON GOD. 
" God be prais'd, that to believing souls 
Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair. 

* rfc :£ %. %■ 

Let never day nor night unhallow'd pass, 
But still remember what the Lord hath done." 

PROVIDENTIAL GUIDANCE. 

" Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, 
TThen our deep plots do fail. And that should teach us 
There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
Kough-hew them how we will. 

There is a special Providence in the fall of a sparrow, 
% * % * * * 

He that doth the ravens feed, 
Yea providently caters for the sparrow ; 
Will comfort man's old age." 

USE OF TALENTS. 
<c Sure, He that made us with such large discourse, 
Looking before, and after, — gave us not 
That capability, and godlike reason, 
To rust in us unus'd. 

Thyself and thy belongings 
Are not thine own so proper, as to waste 
Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee. 

% % % * * 

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 
Not light them for ourselves : for if our virtues 
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
As if we had them not." 



124 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



OBSTINATE GRIEF. 

" To persevere 
In obstinate lamenting is a course 
Of impious stubbornness : — unmanly grief: 
It shews a will most uncorrect to Heaven ; 
A heart unfortified ; or mind impatient ; 
An understanding simple and unschool'd. 
For what we know must be, and is as common 
As any the most vulgar thing to sense, 
Why should we, in our peevish opposition, 
So take to heart ? — It is a fault to Heaven : 
A fault against the dead ; a fault to nature." 

RESIGNATION IS TRUE FORTITUDE. 

" The highest courage is not to prevent 
The term of life for fear of what may fall ; 
But arm ourselves with patience, and await 
Constant, the providence of that high power 
Which governs us below." 

DIVINE JUSTICE. 

" That high All-seer ! whom men dally with, 
Oft turns their feigned prayer upon their head. 

In the corrupted currents of this world, 
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, 
And in worst times the wretched prize itself 
Buys out the law. But 'tis not so above ; 
There, is no shuffling : there the action lies 
In its true nature, and we ourselves compell'd, 
E'en to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
To give in evidence." 



SHAKSPEARE. 125 

RELIANCE UPON HUMAN SUPPORT. 

" ! momentary grace of mortal men, 
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God ; 
Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks, 
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, 
Ready with every nod to tumble down 
Into the fatal bowels of the deep/' 

HUMAN ESTIMATE NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH 
THE MAXIM "HONOUR ALL MEN." 

" In the world's base judgment, 
There's not a man for being simply man 
Hath any honour : but 's honour'd for those honours 
That are without him ; as place, riches, favour, 
Prizes of accident as oft as merit." 

PASSION, UNRULY ; A DREADFUL CURSE. 

"Xo severer imprecation against a child than this : Disci- 
pline come not near thee ; and let thy Passions be thy direc- 
tion till thy Death." 

VIRTUE IS CANDID AND MERCIFUL. 

"Whoso is just 
He doth with holy abstinence subdue 
That in himself, which he doth spur himself 
To qualify in others." 

REPUTATION INESTIMABLE. 

" The purest treasure mortal times afford 
Is — spotless Reputation ; that away, 
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay. 



126 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Good name in man and woman 

Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 

Who steals our purse steals trash ; 'tis something, nothing; 

'Twas our's, 'tis his, and has been. slave to thousands : 

Rut he that niches from us our good name 

Eobs us of that which not enriches him, 

But makes us poor indeed." 

HUMILITY. 

"True goodness in a mortal breast will say — 
Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, 
But graciously to know I am no better." 

CONTENTMENT. 

" The shepherd's homely curds, 
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle; 
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade ; 
(All which secure and sweetly he enjoys), 
Is far beyond a prince's delicates ; 
His viands sparkling in a golden cup ; 
His body couched in a curious bed ; 
When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him " 

INEQUALITY. 

" O that estates, degrees, and offices, 
Were not deriv'd corruptly ; and that clear honour 
Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer ! 
How many then should cover that stand bare; 
How many be commanded that command ! 
How much low peasantry would then be glean'd 
From the true seed of honour ; and how much honour 
Pickt from the chaff and ruin of the times, 
To be new varnish'd ! " 



SHAKSPEARE. 127 

COMMENT ON " SWEAR NOT AT ALL." 

" What other oath 
Than honesty to honesty engag'd ? 
Swear priests and cowards, and such suffering souls 
That welcome wrongs. — Unto bad causes swear 
Such creatures as men doubt. But do not stain 
The even virtue of a good emprize, 
Nor the insuppressive * mettle of true spirits, 
To think that, or the cause, or the performance, 
Can need an oath." 

MAN. 

" What a piece of work is man ! how noble in reason ; 
how vast in faculties ; in form and moving how express and 
admirable ! in action how like an angel ; in apprehension 
how like a god ! " 

SELF-CULTURE. 

" Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are 
gardeners : so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce, 
set hyssop, and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender 
of herbs or distract it with many, either have it steril with 
idleness or manur'd with industry, why the power, and cor- 
rigible authority of this, lies in our wills." 

MIND ALONE IMMORTAL. 

" The cloud- clapt towers ; the gorgeous palaces ; 
The solemn temples ; the great globe itself; 
Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
And, like an insubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind." 



Insuppressible. 



128 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



MEKCY. 

" The quality of mercy is not strain' d ; 
It clroppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest : 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 
'Tis mightiest in the mighty ; and becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown : 
His sceptre shews the force of temporal power, 
The attribute of awe and majesty, 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. 
But Mercy is above this sceptre's sway : 
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings : 
It is an attribute to God himself ! 
And earthly power doth then shew likest God's 
When mercy seasons justice. * * * Consider this,- 
That in the course of justice, none of us 
Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy, 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy." 



MANS ARROGANCE. 

" Merciful heaven ! 
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt 
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, 
Than the soft myrtle ! — O, but man, proud man, 
(Drest in a little brief authority, 
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, 
His glassy essence) — like an angry ape, 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 
As make the angels weep." 



SHAKSPEARE. 129 

FAREWELL TO GREATNESS. 

" Nay, then, farewell ! 
I have touch' d the highest point of all my greatness; 
And, from that full meridian of my glory, 
I haste now to my setting. I shall fall 
Like a bright exhalation in the evening, 
And no man see me more. 
Farewell ! a long farewell, to all my greatness ! 
This is the state of man : to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, 
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him : 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost; 
And, — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root, 
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd, 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
These many summers in a sea of glory, 
But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride 
At length broke under me ; and now hath left me 
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. 
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye : 
I feel my heart new open'd. O I how wretched 
Is that poor man, that hangs on princes' favours. 
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, 
That sweet aspect of princes, and our ruin, 
More pangs and fears than war or women have ; 
And, when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to hope again." 

THE DANGER OF AMBITION. 

" Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear 
In all my miseries ; but thou hast forc'd me, 
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman. 
K 



130 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Let's dry our eyes ; and thus far hear me, Cromwell: 
And, — when I am forgotten, as I shall be, 
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 
Of me more must be heard of, — say, I taught thee, 
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory, 
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour, 
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ; 
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it. 
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me. 
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition : 
By that sin fell the angels ; how can man, then, 
The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't ? 
Love thyself last : cherish those hearts that hate thee : 
Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 
To silence envious tongues : be just, and fear not. 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
Thy God's, and truth's : then, if thou fall'st, O Crom- 
well ! 
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king ; 
And, — pr'ythee, lead me in : 
There take an inventory of all I have, 
To the last penny ; 'tis the king's : my robe, 
And my integrity to heaven, is all 
I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell! 
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal 
I serv'd my king, He would not in my age 
Have left me naked to my enemies ! " 

The ethics of Shakspeare have been far less 
elucidated than the descriptive beauties that adorn 
his page. Many, also, have thought only of 
his faults — the occasional coarseness of expression 
that deforms his writings ; a coarseness from 



SHAKSPEARE. 131 

which no writers of that age are quite free. Such 
cases he has himself described. 

" There are men 
Who carrying the stamp of one defect, 
Their virtues else, be they as pure as grace, 
As infinite as man may undergo, 
Shall in the general censure take corruption 
From that particular fault. 

***** 

The dram of base 
Doth all the noble substance of worth outweigh, 
To his own scandal." 

It is not needful to say more on this subject, 
than that the other dramatic poets of the time of 
Shakspeare, and succeeding him, are in no sense 
so pure. Their writings as a whole are unread- 
able. Notwithstanding their genius, the absence 
of a moral purpose has injured and nearly destroyed 
their vitality. 

It is not wonderful that a period producing 
such poets as Spenser and Shakspeare should be 
rich in minor poets. The names of Drayton, 
Daniel, and Drummond of Hawthornden (the 
Scottish Petrarch), would not have been second- 
ary but for the grandeur of the first names — as 
the splendour of the sun hides the radiance of the 
stars. 



K 2 



132 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, 



CHAP. VIII. 

MIXOR POETS BETWEEN THE TIME OF SHAKSPEARE AND 
MILTON. 

The minor poets of the period contemporary 
with and immediately succeeding Shakspeare, 
are well worthy of reverential remembrance. 
Their number was very great. " Ellis reckons 
up a hundred minor poets of the time, and Drake 
made a list of two hundred."* They carried the 
short lyric to a greater perfection than it had 
previously attained, and some of their stanzas 
will live as long as piety and genius continue to 
influence the heart and mind of man. Who can 
read without a sense of their quaint sweetness 
Sir Walter Raleigh's lines — 

MY PILGRIMAGE. 

" Give me my scallop shell of quiet, 
My staff of faith to walk upon, 
My scrip of joy (immortal diet!) 
Mv bottle of salvation, 



* Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe, 
vol. ii. p. 132. 



WILLIAM HABIXGTOX. 133 

My gown of glory, hope's true gage ; 

And thus I take my pilgrimage 

(Blood must be my body's balmer), 

While my soul, like peaceful palmer, 

Travelleth towards the land of heaven 

(Other balm will not be given). 

Over the silver mountains, 

Where spring the nectar fountains, 

There will I kiss 

The bowl of bliss, 

And drink my everlasting nil 

Upon every milken hill ; 

My soul will be a- dry before, 

But after that will thirst no more." 

William Habington, the author of " Castara/' 
among many beautiful stanzas, has some pecu- 
liarly fine in his little poem, 

NIGHT TEACHETH KNOWLEDGE. 

" When I survey the bright 
Celestial sphere, 
So rich with jewels hung, that night 
Doth like an JEthiop bride appear; 

" My soul her wings doth spread, 
And heavenward flies, 
The Almighty mysteries to read 
In the large volume of the skies. 

" For the bright firmament 

Shoots out no flame 

So silent, but is eloquent 

In speaking the Creator's name." 



131 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

In the present age* a taste has revived for the 
quaint sweetness of some of the lyrics of Herrick. 
While the heavenly strains of George Herbert are 
justly considered as the finest devotional poems 
between the time of the greatest dramatic and epic 
poet of our land* there is a little stanza of the 
sweet and fanciful Herrick that breathes true peni- 
tence for the license of some of his poems. 

" For those my unbaptized rhymes, 
Writ in my wild unhallowed times ; 
For every sentence, clause, and word, 
That's not inlaid with thee, my Lord ; 
Forgive me, God ! and blot each line, 
Out of my book that is not thine. 
But if 'mongst all, Thou find'st there one 
Worthy thy benediction, 
That one of all the rest shall be, 
The glory of my work and me." 

Equally beautiful and true is the sentiment, 
that worldly honours are hinderances to the 
Christian life. 

" Give me honours : what are these 
But the pleasing hindrances — 
Stiles, and stops, and stays, that come 
In the way 'twixt me and home ? 
Clear the walk, and then shall I 
To my Heaven less run than fly." 

Incomparably the most spiritual and tender poet 
of that period was, as we said, George Herbert. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 135 

His stanzas are pervaded by a most glowing piety, 
and reveal a delicate loving nature. How strange 
it seems that the first celebrated infidel writer that 
England ever produced (Lord Herbert of Cher- 
bury) should have been the brother of this 
Christian poet ! The brothers Herbert are a 
curious instance of the difference of mental mani- 
festation that may occur with a similar mode of 
training and education. Their mother was a most 
admirable woman, and trained her sons in the 
knowledge and practice of every Christian virtue. 
Xevertheless the one was a sceptic, the other 
a believer. Each was active in spreading his 
opinions, — the one suggesting doubt, the other 
confirming faith. It was probably owing to the 
excellent lessons of the mother, that Lord Herbert 
in the midst of his disbelief was yet a moral man ; 
and that his gloomy creed, though it could yield 
no comfort either to himself or his reader, did not 
in his case, as it so often does, lead to corruption 
of life. 

George Herbert was the perfect embodiment 
of a good pastor. Isaac Walton's biography of 
this admirable man contains exquisite touches, 
that exemplify the apostolic simplicity and piety 
of his character. 

It is recorded in his biography, " that in one of 
his w T alks to Salisbury to join a musical society, he 

K 4 



136 SKETCHES OP ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

saw a poor man with a poorer horse which had 
fallen under its load. Pulling off his canonical 
coat, he helped the poor man to unload, and raise 
the horse, and afterwards to load him again. The 
poor man blessed him for it, and he blessed the 
poor man. And so like was he to the good 
Samaritan, that he gave him money to refresh 
both himself and his horse, admonishing him also, 
if he loved himself to be merciful to his beast. 
Then coming to his musical friends at Salisbury, 
they began to wonder that Mr. George Herbert, 
who used to be always so trim and neat, should 
come into that company so soiled and discomposed. 
Yet when he told them the reason, one of them 
said that he had disparaged himself by so mean 
an employment. But the answer was, that the 
thought of what he had done would prove music 
to him at midnight, and that the omission of it 
would have made discord in his conscience when- 
ever he should pass that place, ' For if,' said he, 
' I am bound to pray for all that are in distress, I 
am surely bound so far as is in my power to 
produce what I pray for. And though I do not 
wish for the like occasion every day, yet would I 
not willingly pass one day of my life without 
comforting a sad soul, or showing mercy, and I 
praise God for this opportunity. So now let us 
tune our instruments. 5 " 



GEORGE HERBERT. 137 

An American female poet*, of the present time, 
referring to this deed, beautifully says — 

" The deed to kurable virtue born, 

Winch nursing memory taught 
To shun a boastful world's applause, 

And love the lowly thought ; 
This builds a cell within the heart, 

Amid the blasts of care, 
And tuning high its heaven- struck harp, 

Makes midnight music there." 

There is a fulness of spiritual delight in the 
hallowed theme of Herbert's sacred lays, in which 
the reader can scarcely fail to participate. More 
is implied than expressed, as if words foiled him : 
thus he says — 

" My joy, my life, my crown : 

My heart was meaning all the day 
Somewhat it fain would say ; 
And still it runneth muttering up and down, 
With only this — my joy, my life, my crown ! 

" Yet slight not these few words ; 

If truly said, they may take part 

Among the best in art. 
The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords 
Is when the soul unto the lines accords." 

Nothing in literary biography is more memo- 
rable than the death-bed of this Christian poet, as 
recorded by Isaac Walton. 

* Mrs. Sigourney. 



138 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" In the time of his decay he was often visited and prayed 
for by all the clergy that lived near him, especially by his 
friends the bishop and prebends of the cathedral church in 
Salisbury ; but by none more devoutly than his wife, his 
three nieces (then a part of his family), and Mr. Woodnot, 
who were the sad witnesses of his daily decay, to whom he 
would often speak to this purpose : i I now look back upon 
the pleasures of my life past, and see the content I have 
taken in wit, in music, and pleasant conversation, are now 
all past by me, like a dream, or as a shadow that returns 
not, and are now all become dead to me, or I to them ; and 
I see that as my father and generation hath done before me, 
so I also shall now suddenly make my bed also in the dark ; 
and I praise God I am prepared for it ; and I praise Him 
that I am not to learn patience now that I stand in such 
need of it ; and that I have practised mortification and 
endeavoured to die daily that I might not die eternally : 
and my hope is that I shall shortly leave this valley of tears, 
and be free from all fears and pain ; and which will be a 
more happy condition, I shall be free from sin, and all the 
temptations and anxieties that attend it. And this being 
past I shall dwell in the new Jerusalem, dwell there with 
men made perfect, dwell where these eyes shall see my 
Master and Saviour, Jesus ; and with him see my dear 
mother and all my relations and friends. But I must die, 
or not come to that happy place : and this is my content, 
that I am going daily towards it ; and that every day which 
I have lived hath taken a part of my appointed time from 
me, and that I shall live the less time for having lived this 
and the day past.' These and the like expressions, which 
he uttered often, may be said to be his enjoyment of heaven? 
before he entered it. The Sunday before his death, he 
rose suddenly from his bed or couch, called for one of his 
instruments, took it into his hand, and said : 



GEORGE HERBERT. 139 

'My God, my God! 
My music shall find thee, 
And every string 
Shall find his attribute to sing.' 

And having tuned it, he played and sang — 

4 Oh day most calm, most bright, 
The fruit of this — the next world's bud; 
Th' endorsement of supreme delight, 

Writ by a friend, and with his blood ; 
The couch of time ; care's balm and stay : 
The week were dark but for thy light ; 
Thy torch doth shew the way. 

4 The other days and thou 
Make up one man ; whose face thou art. 
Knocking at heaven with thy brow : 

The working days are the back part ; 
The burden of the week lies there, 
Making the whole to stoop and bow, 
'Till thy release appear. 

* Man had straight forward gone 
To endless death : but thou dost pull 
And turn us round, to look on one 
Whom, if we were not very dull, 
We could not choose but look on still ; 
Since there is no place, so alone, 
The which he doth not fill. 

' Sundays the pillars are 
On which the palace arched lies ; 
The other days fill up the spare 

And hollow room with vanities. 
They are the fruitful bed and borders 
In God's rich garden ; that is bare 

Which parts their ranks and orders. 



140 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

4 The Sundays of man's life, 
Threaded together on Time's string, 
Make bracelets to adorn the' wife * 

Of the eternal glorious King. 
On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope ; 
Blessings are plentiful and rife, 
More plentiful than hope.' ' 

The finest occasional poem of the period in 
question is " The Soul's Errand." That has been 
given, on questionable authority, to Sir Walter 
Kaleigh; but since claimed as the work of Joshua 
Sylvester, whose other poems, however, bear no 
comparison to this. The careful reader will ob- 
serve that the peculiarity of this poem consists in 
its fine contrast of virtue with the opposite vices 
to which extremes ever tend. The recurrence of 
the burden " Give the world the lie," is a strong 
way of putting the necessity of a brave testimony 
to truth, as the mission or " errand" of a good 
man's life. 

THE SOUL'S ERRAND. 

" Go, soul, the body's guest, 

Upon a thankless errand ! 
Fear not to touch the best, 

The truth shall be thy warrant ; 
Go, since I needs must die, 
And jnve the world the lie. 



* The Church. 



JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 141 

" Go, tell the court it glows 

And shines like rotten wood ; 
Go, tell the church it shows 

What's good, and doth no good : 
If church and court reply, 
Then give them both the lie. 

" Tell potentates, they live 

Acting by others' actions, 
Not lov'd unless they give, 

Not strong but by their factions : 
If potentates reply, 
Give potentates the lie. 

" Tell men of high condition 
That rule affairs of state, 
Their purpose is ambition, 

Their practice only hate ; 
And if they once reply, 
Then give them all the lie. 

- 4 Tell them that brave it most, 

They beg for more by spending, 
Who in their greatest cost, 

Seek nothing but commending ; 
And if they make reply, 
Then give them all the lie. 

" Tell zeal it lacks devotion, 
Tell love it is but lust, 
Tell time it is but motion, 
Tell life it is but dust ; 
And wish them not reply, 
For thou must give the lie. 



142 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" Tell age it daily wasteth, 

Tell honour how it alters, 
Tell beauty how she blasteth, 

Tell favour how she falters ; 
And as they shall reply, 
Give every one the lie. 

" Tell wit how much it wrangles 
In tickle points of niceness ; 
Tell wisdom she entangles' 
Herself in over wiseness : 
And when they do reply, 
Straight give them both the lie. 

" Tell physic of her boldness, 

Tell skill it is pretension, 
Tell charity of coldness, 

Tell law it is contention ; 
And as they do reply, 
So give them still the lie. 

" Tell fortune of her blindness, 
Tell nature of decay, 
Tell friendship of unkindness, 

Tell justice of delay ; 
And if they will reply, 
Then give them all the lie. 

" Tell arts they have no soundness, 
But vary by esteeming ; 
Tell schools they want profoundness, 

And stand too much on seeming : 
If arts and schools reply, 
Give arts and schools the lie. 



JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 143 

" Tell faith it's fled the city, 

Tell how the country erreth, 
Tell manhood shakes off pity, 

Tell virtue least preferreth * ; 
And if they do reply, 
Spare not to give the lie. 

" So when thou hast, as I 

Commanded thee, done blabbing , 

Although to give the lie 

Deserves no less than stabbing ; 

Yet stab at thee who will, 

No stab the soul can kill." 



Virtue leads not to preferment. 



144 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



CHAP. IX. 



SCIENCE AND ITS MARTYRS. 



The history of science is similar to that of lite- 
rature, and intimately connected with it. Its 
records show that many ancient nations had an 
extensive and reverential, if not absolutely accu- 
rate, scientific knowledge. Then came the dark 
ages of Europe, w T hen distorted traditions and 
superstitions usurped the place of truth, and 
effectually blinded the eyes of those who, from 
leisure and station, might otherwise have engaged 
in useful inquiries into the wonders of the world 
around them. The Chaldeans of old knew some- 
thing of the stars, and the Arabians added to that 
knowledge. The art of measuring time by a sun- 
dial was known to the Hebrews in the time of 
Hezekiah ; and, far earlier, the annual inundations 
of the Nile, by compelling the Egyptians to 
measure their land after the waters had abated, 
gave rise to a knowledge of geometry. This in- 
troduced the study of arithmetic, which is the 
foundation of all the exact sciences. Mathematics 
and mechanics were carefully studied, and brought 
to great perfection by the Greeks. The ancients 



ROGER BACON. 145 

seem to have divided knowledge into three parts — 
arithmetic, geometry, and dialectics or language. 

Since the Christian era, the Arabians were, until 
the tenth century, the most literary and scientific 
people. To them modern Europe was indebted for 
numerals, chemistry, and improvements in archi- 
tecture and poetry. They founded numerous 
schools in Spain, and established the earliest li- 
braries. Their false religious faith, however, made 
the Christians receive their discoveries w r ith dread 
and suspicion ; and a long period of gross darkness 
prevailed, in which natural phenomena were re- 
garded with mere stupid wonder by some, and with 
awe-stricken dread by others ; and any attempt to 
understand those wonders was thought an unlawful 
study, and any successful knowledge a proof of 
magical power, justly subjecting its possessor to 
suspicion, hatred, and persecution. 

The first man in England who dared to inves- 
tigate nature, and introduce those laws we term 
science, was Roger Bacon (born 1214). He is 
the most memorable instance on record of a man 
living before his age, and becoming the servant, 
not of his contemporaries, but of posterity. He 
was intimately acquainted with geography and 
astronomy, and made many valuable discoveries in 
optics and chemistry ; he, also, was not ignorant 
of the composition of gunpowder. This great 

L 



146 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

man's knowledge was so little appreciated, that it 
made him numerous enemies, particularly among 
the monks of his own fraternity, and consigned 
him twice to close imprisonment. For a brief 
period between those imprisonments, a pope 
(Clement IV.), more enlightened than the clergy 
generally, liberated him, and took him under his 
protection. But this patron died, and ten years 
of yet stricter imprisonment for Bacon followed. 
So little were his works and labours valued or 
understood, that the name of Friar Bacon has 
come down to modern times rather as a necro- 
mancer of the middle ages than as a scientific dis- 
coverer. It has been remarked, that in the cha- 
racter of his mind and writings, and in the mode 
of his studies, his great namesake of the sixteenth 
century resembled him who, more than three 
hundred years after, effected such changes in those 
pursuits of science which w^ere at once the blessing 
and the bane, the joy and grief, of the life of the 
philosopher of the thirteenth century. It has 
been conjectured, and with every show of reason, 
that had the art of printing been discovered at the 
time Koger Bacon lived, such was the sluggishness 
of mind at that period, and the complete preva- 
lence of superstition, that it would have been re- 
jected with horror and smothered in its birth. 
Fortunately, as we have seen, that art came at a 
time when the clouds were rapidly breaking 



DISTINGUISHED ASTRONOMERS. 147 

away, and the morning stars of literature in the 
south had heralded the corning day. 

The most important scientific discovery of the 
fourteenth century was that of the Mariner's 
Compass by Flavio Gioja, a Neapolitan. This in- 
strument, in more senses than one, led the way 
to the maritime discoveries of the Portuguese in 
the fourteenth century, and the ever memorable 
discoveries of Columbus in the fifteenth; the 
latter having increased the known boundaries of 
the world one half, and received as his reward 
a life of anxiety, disappointment, and ingratitude. 

The sixteenth century w T as not only the age of 
literary greatness, but science then made rapid 
strides. We have already adverted to Lord Bacon, 
but other names deserve honourable mention for 
their genius and their sufferings. 

It was natural that the grandest of the sciences, 
astronomy, which had long ministered more to 
the ambition and credulity of mankind than to 
their real knowledge, should be the first to eman- 
cipate herself from the dreams of astrologers. 
Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler, 
were the four distinguished astronomers of the 
period: thus Poland, Italy, Denmark, and Ger- 
many, furnished each a philosopher destined to 
pave the way for a more enlightened age, and, a 
century later, a far more distinguished and for- 
tunate successor in Sir Isaac Newton. 

L 2 



148 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The four astronomers named experienced very 
bitterly the antagonism of prejudice against truth. 
Copernicus dreaded to publish his theory, that the 
sun was stationary, and the earth moved round it. 
The pope and all influential churchmen (and they 
chiefly decided on scientific matters) held a con- 
trary belief, and to differ from them was black 
heresy. Copernicus died, and thus escaped the 
malice of his enemies, just after the publication 
of his theory. The storm of persecution, however, 
descended upon his disciple Galileo, — as great a 
genius as any in that age of great geniuses. It 
is well known that he was consigned to the 
dungeons of the Inquisition for saying, and 
proving, that the earth moved, and the sun stood 
still. Tycho Brahe, of noble birth, and remark- 
ably discursive mind, possessing talent rather than 
genius, endured banishment and the confiscation 
of his property, as the consequence of being wiser 
than his peers. And patient, laborious, truthful 
John Kepler, lived a life of perpetual struggle 
with poverty and sorrow.* These men were to 
astronomy what Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio 
were to literature, — its morning stars — " heralds 
of the dawn." Modern triumphs of knowledge 
may, like the risen sun, obscure, and indeed hide, 
their beams, but the grateful memory will ever 
dwell upon their names with tender reverence. 
* See " Martyrs of Science," by Sir David Brewster. 



EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE. 149 

To the three divisions of knowledge by the 
ancients — arithmetic, geometry, and dialectics, — 
the moderns, taught by Lord Bacon, have added a 
fourth — experiment, which consolidates, confirms, 
and extends all the others, and constantly is adding 
to their range. 

Chemistry, electricity, geology, hydrostatics, 
and pneumatics, are all the result of experiment ; 
and it is satisfactory to know that the triumphs of 
our century in science are fully equal to those of 
the sixteenth in literature. Some think our danger 
now is, that, in the midst of secondary causes, 
we should forget the great First Cause, who, 
legibly as he has written his name upon his works 
in nature, has far more distinctly and graciously 
discovered himself in his Word. To know some- 
what of Him, even through a glass darkly, and of 
our relations to Him by nature and grace, must 
ever be the highest knowledge. If the soul be 
really enlightened, the heart right, then all col- 
lateral knowledge of nature and her laws will be 
aids to a more devout and reverential love of Him, 
who is " glorious in power, fearful in praises, doing- 
wonders." 

The Christian philosopher feels the full beauty 
of the fine exordium of a distinguished living poet 
to the various forms of matter that the mind of 
man has influenced. 

L s 



150 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, 

" Be ye * to man as angels be to God, 
Servants in pleasure, singers of delight, 
Suggesters to his soul of higher things 
Than any of your highest. So, at last, 
He shall look round on you, with lids too strait 
To hold the grateful tears, and thank you well ; 
And bless you when he prays his secret prayers, 
And praise you when he sings his open songs, 
For the clear song- note he has learnt in you 
Of purifying sweetness ; and extend 
Across your head his golden fantasies, 
Which glorify you into soul, from sense." f 



* Material things. f Mrs. Barrett Browning, 



MILTON, 15! 



CHAR X. 

MILTON AKD HIS LITERARY CONTEMPORARIES. 

The life and writings of John Milton constitute 
an epoch in the literary history of his country. 
No other writer ever attained such a height of 
sublimity, and only one, Shakspeare, surpassed 
him in variety. No man ever more completely em- 
bodied his expressed principles in his life. Many 
great thinkers have failed to carry their theories 
into practice ; but a complete harmony between 
the thought and deed marked Milton during 
the whole of his eventful career. There are, and 
probably ever will be, great differences of opinion 
as to the abstract truth of some of his sentiments 
on religion and polities ; but no one doubts Milton's 
consistency with himself, his stainless integrity, 
and perfect sincerity. Hence our great contem- 
plative poet Wordsworth has justly and beautifully 
said of him : — 

" Thy soul was as a stai% and dwelt apart, 
Pure as the naked heavens, unstain'd and free." 

Milton's mental history, apart from his genius, 
has been considered very remarkable, from the 

L 4 



o 



152 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

fact of his having laid aside his favourite pursuit, 
poetic composition, in which he had attained high 
and acknowledged reputation, for political studies 
and controversial writings, during the most im- 
portant period of England's history; and, after 
an interval of twenty years, returning to his first 
pursuit not only without any diminution, but with 
an accession, of power and majesty. 

He is, perhaps, the only very great writer who 
attained to equal excellence in prose and poetry. 
In every kind of composition that he used he 
raised the English language to a dignity and 
grace it had never, if we except Shakspeare, 
reached before. His productions are so many 
models in their different departments. His 
masque of " Comus," his " Allegro " and " Pense- 
roso," are each not only unrivalled for power of 
imagination, play of fancy, appropriateness of 
imagery, and delicious harmony of versification, 
but also for a delicate, unsullied purity that no 
other writer of that age had attained to, and none 
in any subsequent time has surpassed. No 
longer could the English language be pronounced 
rugged, when the tripping melody of the " Al- 
legro," the slow harmony of the (i Penseroso," and 
the matchless sweetness of the " Comus," were 
given to the world. These poems were the product 
of his ripe youth and early manhood. The 
elegy of " Lycidas " is no less beautiful, and has 



& 



MILTON. 153 

a tender origin that marks the depth of Milton's 
affections. His young friend and fellow student, 
Edward King, of Christ's College, Cambridge, the 
son of Sir John King, secretary for Ireland, was 
on his way to join his father, when suddenly, in 
a calm sea and not far from the English coast, 
the vessel foundered, and all on board perished. 
Milton was twenty-nine, and his lamented friend 
twenty-five, when this calamity occurred. He 
commemorated his friend's death and his own 
affection by the exquisite poem of " Lyeidas," 
modelled on the structure of the pastoral. He 
called on the shepherds and on all nature to mourn 
with him. 

" Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more 
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, 
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude ; 
And, with forc'd fingers rude, 
Scatter your leaves before the mellowing year : 
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear, 
Compels me to disturb your season due : 
For Lyeidas is dead, dead ere his prime, 
Young Lyeidas, and hath not left his peer : 
Who would not sing for Lyeidas ? He knew 
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. 
He must not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
Without the meed of some melodious tear. 
# * % * * # 

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
(That last infirmity of noble mind) 



154 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

To scorn delights, and live laborious days ; 

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 

And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 

Comes the blind Fury, with abhorred shears, 

And slits the thin-spun life. 'But not the praise,' 

Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears ; 

* Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 

Nor in the glistering foil 

Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies ; 

But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, 

And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; 

As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 

Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed/ 
****** 

Weep no more, vocal shepherds, weep no more, 

For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, 

Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor ; 

So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, 

And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 

And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore 

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky : 

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, 

Through the dear might of Him that walltd the leaves ; 

Where, other groves and other streams along, 

With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, 

And hears the unexpressive nuptial song, 

In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. 

There entertain him all the saints above, 

In solemn troops, and sweet societies, 

That sing, and singing in their glory move, 

And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes." 

The reader, from these brief extracts, will readily 
imagine the noble tribute paid by genius to 
affection. Milton's " melodious tears " have em- 



MILTON. 155 

bahned the memory of his friend to all gener- 
ations. It was reserved for a poet of the present 
time successfully to emulate Milton in tender and 
sweet elegiac stanzas.* 

Like Chaucer and Surrey, Milton went to 
Italy, for the purpose not only of seeing ever- 
memorable cities, but of studying the works of 
poetry and art in their native home. Here the 
sound reached him of the troubles in his own land, 
the king and the parliament having come not only 
to a rupture but to open war. Milton left the 
studies and the land he loved at duty's call, and 
returned to render service by his mind to the sore 
troubled state. He did not take the sword — the 
pen was his implement. And while he settled 
down to the instruction of his nephews and a few 
other gentlemen's sons as his honourable pursuit, 
he employed his leisure from the exhausting work 
of instruction in aiding by his writings the cause 
he deemed just. 

Undoubtedly his " Areopogetica," or Essay on 
the Liberty of the Press, is the most sustained 
and magnificent of all his admirable prose writings. 
It was addressed, be it remembered, to the re- 
publican parliament of England, then professing 
greatly to favour liberty, but evidently not pre- 
pared to adopt Milton's view. His opinions were 
far in advance of his age and party on that 
* Tennyson's " In Memoriam." 



156 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

question, and it is only in comparatively recent 
times that the freedom of the press has been en- 
joyed by the people of England. 

Some passages in that noble essay may well 
claim to have stirred the heart of England, and to 
have poured a full tide of aspirations for genuine 
liberty through her whole frame. 

" I deny not but that it is of the greatest concernment in 
the church and commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how 
books demean themselves as well as men, and thereafter to 
confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as male- 
factors ; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do 
contain a potency of life in them, to be as active as that 
soul whose progeny they are ; nay, they do preserve, as in 
a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living in- 
tellect that bred them. I know they are as lively and 
vigorously productive as those fabulous dragons' teeth, and 
being sown up and down may chance to spring up armed 
men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, 
as good almost kill a man as kill a good book ; who kills a 
man kills a reasonable creature, God's image ; but he who 
destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of 
God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to 
the earth ; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a 
master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a 
life beyond life : 'tis true no life can restore a life, whereof 
perhaps there is no great loss ; and revolutions of ages do 
not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want 
of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary 
therefore what persecution we raise against the living la- 
bours of public men, how spill that seasoned life of man pre- 
served and stored up in books, since we see a kind of homi- 
cide may be thus committed, sometimes a kind of martyrdom ; 



MILTOX. 157 

and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, 
whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an ele- 
mental life, but strikes at that ethereal and soft essence, 
the breath of reason itself — slays an immortality rather 
than a life. ...... Though all the winds of doctrine 

were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the 
field we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to mis- 
doubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple ; who 
ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open en- 
counter ? Her confuting is the best and surest suppres- 
sing. He who hears what praying there is for light and 
clear knowledge to be sent down among us, would think of 
other matters to be constituted beyond the discipline of 
Geneva, framed and fabricated already to our hands. Yet 
when the new light which we beg for shines in upon us, there 
be who envy and oppose if it come not first in at their case- 
ments. What' a collusion is this, whereas we are exhorted 
by the wise man to use diligence ' to seek for wisdom as for 
hidden treasure, early and late,' that another order should 
enjoin us to know nothing but by statute! When a man 
hath been labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines 
of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their 
equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle ranged, 
scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out 
his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of 
wind and sun, if he please, only that he may try the matter 
by dint of argument ; for his opponents then to skulk, to 
lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where 
the challenger should pass — though it be valour enough in 
soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of 
truth. For who knows not that truth is strong next to the 
Almighty ? She needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor 
licensings to make her victorious ; those are the shifts and 
the defences that error uses against her power; give her 
but room, and do not bind her when she is asleep.' 5 



158 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

It is to be lamented that in Milton's contro- 
versial works he employed the bitter invectives 
and epithets which were then so generally used. 
It is in this respect, and this only, that he betrays 
any taint of the acrimony of that age. In nothing 
do modern writers on politics and theology contrast 
more favourably with their predecessors than in 
the absence of such railing terms against oppo- 
nents, and the presence of a more courteous and 
dispassionate mode of advocating opinions. 

His deep sense of the responsibilities of genius 
is shown in his " Literary Musings." 

" After I had from my first years, by the ceaseless dili- 
gence and care of my father, whom God recompense, been 
exercised to the tongues, and some sciences, as my age 
would suffer, by sundry masters and teachers, both at home 
and at the schools ; it was found that whether aught has 
imposed me by them that had the overlooking, or betaken 
to of my own choice in English, or other tongue, prosing 
or versing, but chiefly the latter, the style, by certain vital 
signs it had, was likely to live. But much latelier, in the 
private academies of Italy, whither I was favoured to re- 
sort, perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory, 
composed at under twenty or thereabout (for the manner 
is that every one must give some proof of his wit and learn- 
ing there), met with acceptance above what was looked for ; 
and other things which I had shifted, in scarcity of books 
and conveniences, to patch up among them, were received 
with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward 
to bestow on men of this side the Alps. I began thus far 
to assent both to them and divers of my friends here at 
home : and not less to an inward prompting, which now 



MILTON. 159 

grew daily upon me, that by labour and intent study (which 
I take to be my portion in this life), joined to the strong 
propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so 
written to after times as they should not willingly let it die. 
These thoughts at once possessed me, and these others, that 
if I were certain to write as men buy leases, for three lives 
and downward, there ought no regard be sooner had than 
to God's glory by the honour and instruction of my coun- 
try Neither do I think it shame to covenant 

with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may 
go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now 
indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of 
youth or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste 
from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher-fury 
of a rhyming parasite ; nor to be obtained by the invocation 
of dame Memory and her syren daughters ; but by devout 
prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utter- 
ance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the 
hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of 
whom he pleases. To this must be added industrious and 
select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly 
arts and affairs ; till which in some measure be compassed, 
at mine own peril and cost I refuse not to sustain this ex- 
pectation from as many as are not loath to hazard so much 
credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them." 

At the Restoration Milton's celebrated "De- 
fence of the People of England/' and his " Icon- 
oclastes " (or the Image Breaker), the answer to 
the " Icon Basilike " (or Royal Image), were 
publicly burnt by the common hangman ; and he 
had to hide himself, so that he might be supposed 
to be dead, in order to escape the rage of the 
royalists. 



160 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The Act of Oblivion, following the Restoration, 
did not make any exception of. Milton's name, and 
he once more, but very guardedly, ventured to 
appear in public. He was now called to endure 
some of the heaviest sorrows of which our nature 
is capable. He had been blind some years, having 
lost his sight by his great application to study. 
When he was composing his celebrated " Defence 
of the People of England " (relative to the trial 
and condemnation of King Charles), against the 
charges of Salmasius, a continental author and 
great royalist, his eyes began to trouble him with 
dimness and uncertain sight. He consulted the 
celebrated oculists of the time, and they assured 
him that, unless he laid aside all literary labour, 
blindness would ensue. It shows how Milton 
made the " Defence of the People " a matter of 
conscience, when he declared that he would per- 
severe with his book whatever might be the result. 
Added to this affliction, his fortunes suffered with 
the decline of his party and the restoration of 
Charles II.; so that at length, when he could come 
out of hiding and walk abroad among his country- 
men, he was both blind and poor. The flatterers 
of the royal party, some of them persons of bril- 
liancy and wit, poured opprobrium on his name, 
and many timid friends forsook him : so that 
slander, malice, and ingratitude became his portion. 
It would be well if we could add that, when he 



MILTOX. 161 

entered his comparatively humble dwelling, he 
could shut his door upon all annoyances and find 
in the bosom of a grateful family a soothing balm 
for his wounded spirit. But, alas ! domestic 
troubles were there. His two elder daughters 
were not dutiful; they could not comprehend 
their father's lofty nature, and they disliked his 
studious pursuits. Ultimately, however, he did 
find human solace to his woes and privations in 
the sympathy of his estimable third wife, and of 
his dutiful youngest daughter — Deborah. 

What vicissitudes had he known ! First a 
tenderly nurtured child ; then in youth an ac- 
complished scholar ; very early in life a celebrated 
poet, his fame being acknowledged even in Italy ; 
then a political writer of eminence ; subsequently 
Latin Secretary to Oliver the Protector ; during 
all these changes possessing means sufficient to 
enable him munificently to maintain a large family, 
and to shelter his first wife's ungenial relatives. 
Then came the reverse. Death had entered his 
dwelling and robbed him of some of his children, 
of his deeply venerated father, of his dear 
Catherine the second wife, whom he calls his 
* espoused saint." Besides which, his official em- 
ployment, his troops of friends, his well-earned 
literary honours, and patriotic reputation, that had 
cost him not only laborious days and nights but 
even his sight ; these were all gone : and in their 

M 



162 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

stead came neglect, obscurity, poverty, and dark- 
ness. But "to the just shall arise light in the 
darkness." Milton, while he felt his sorrows as a 
man, bore them as a Christian ; he set himself to 
realise the wish that had remained with him from 
his childhood, and which he thus expresses, " To 
leave something so written that my countrymen 
would not willingly let it die." The " Paradise 
Lost," the " Samson Agonistes," and the " Para- 
dise Regained," were all written after his baptism 
of affliction. The life of Milton, therefore, is 
inseparable from his writings ; they elucidate and 
explain each other, and are equally valuable to 
the student of English literature as specimens of 
noble thinking and acting. 

Munificent prices for books were not given by 
publishers before there was a reading public ; yet 
the sum Milton received for his Epic (five pounds 
paid down on the first edition, and the promise of 
three other similar payments if it succeeded) has 
been very justly the theme of indignant wonder 
* with every succeeding generation. It is, how- 
ever, equally a wonder that any bookseller would 
undertake to publish the work of a man w T hose 
former books had been publicly burned, and who 
was so obnoxious to the royal party. Something 
must be allowed for the fact that, whatever the 
intrinsic excellence of the book, it was possible 
that no one would read it except to condemn it. 
In the present day, with a people tolerably com- 



MILTON. 163 

petent to judge of the merits of a book, it is not 
easy for party malice, or even legal authority, to 
prevent its circulation ; knowledge is now so in- 
creased that wisdom can run to and fro without 
much chance of being successfully impeded. Then, 
the educated class was a restricted section of 
society, more under the dominion of the law of 
opinion than others of humbler rank ; and besides, 
from the very majesty and sublimity of Milton's 
poems, they appealed to the cultivated reason as 
much or more than to the feelings, and, therefore, 
never could be favourites with the mere multitude. 
Hasty, superficial, thoughtless people, even in the 
most intellectual age, will never be the real ad- 
miring readers of Milton. 

Free as Milton was, in common with every 
really great man, from the weakness of egotism, 
yet fortunately lie has recorded enough of his 
feelings in reference to his loss of sight, to enable 
us to sympathise with him more completely than 
we could otherwise have clone. His invocation to 
Light, at the commencement of the third book of 
" Paradise Lost," sublime in itself, appeals to the 
heart as well as the brain, in consequence of his 
blindness. 

" Hail, holj Light ! offspring of Heav'n first born, 
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam 
May I express thee unblani'd ? since God is light, 
And never but in unapproached light 
M 2 



164 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, 

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, 

Bright effluence of bright essence increate. 

Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream 

Whose fountain who shall tell ? Before the sun, 

Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice 

Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest 

The rising world of waters dark and deep, 

Won from the void and formless infinite. 

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing, 

Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain' d 

In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight 

Through utter and through middle darkness borne? 

With other notes than to the Orphean lyre 

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night ; 

Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down 

The dark descent, and up to reascend, 

Though hard and rare : Thee I revisit safe, 

And feel thy sov'reign vital lamp ; but thou 

Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain 

To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ; 

So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs T 

Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more 

Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt 

Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, 

Smit with the love of sacred song ; but chief 

Thee, Sion, and thy flowery brooks beneath, 

That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, 

Nightly I visit : nor sometimes forget 

Those other two equall'd with me in fate, 

So were I equall'd with them in renown, 

Blind Thamyris, and blind Mseonides, 

And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old : 

Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move 

Harmonious numbers ; as the wakeful bird 

Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid 



MILTON. 165 

Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year 

Seasons return ; but not to me returns 

Day, or the sweet approach of Ev'n or Morn, 

Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; 

But cloud instead, and ever-during dark 

Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men 

Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair 

Presented with an universal blank 

Of nature's works to me expunged and ras'd, 

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 

So much the rather thou, celestial Light, 

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers 

Irradiate ; there plant eyes, all mist from thence 

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 

Of things invisible to mortal sight." 

Gloriously was this last aspiration fulfilled ! It 
has been finely saidj Milton is never more himself 
than when speaking of himself. We like, there- 
fore, to trace his course of thought in reference 
to this calamity. 



" When I consider how my light is spent 

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, 
And that one talent which is death to hide, 
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent 
To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
My true account, lest He, returning, chide ; 
4 Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?' 
I fondly ask : but Patience, to prevent 

M 3 



168 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

That murmur, soon replies, c God doth not need 
Either man's work, or his own gifts ; who best 
Bear his mild yoke, they serve Him best : his state 

Is kingly ; thousands at his bidding speed, 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; 
They also serve who only stand and wait.' " 

In " Samson Agonistes " the same personal 
deprivation is made the matter of a bitter and 
piteous lamentation in the character of Samson. 

"But chief of all, 
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain ! 
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains, 
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age ! 
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, 
And all her various objects of delight 
Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd, 
Inferior to the vilest now become 
Of man or worm ; the vilest here excel me ; 
They creep, yet see ; I, dark in light, expos'd 
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong, 
Within doors, or without, still as a fool, 
In power of others, never in my own ; 
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. 
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, 
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse 
Without all hope of day ! 
O first created Beam, and thou great Word, 
8 Let there be light,' and light was over all ; 
Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree ? 
The sun to me is dark 
And silent as the moon, 
When she deserts the night, 
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. 



MILTON. 167 

Since light so necessary is to life, 

And almost life itself, if it be true 

That light is in the soul, 

She all in every part ; why was the sight 

To such a tender ball as the eye confin'd, 

So obvious and so easy to be quench'd ? 

And not, as feeling, through all parts diffus'd, 

That she might look at will through every pore ? 

Then had I not been thus exil'd from light, 

As in the land of darkness, yet in light, 

To live a life half dead, a living death, 

And buried ; but, O yet more miserable ! 

Myself my sepulchre, my moving grave ; 

Buried, yet not exempt, 

By privilege of death and burial, 

From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs ; 

But made hereby obnoxious more 

To all the miseries of life, 

Life in captivity 

Among inhuman foes." 

Recently another short poem on his blindness 
has been discovered, less sublime, but more inti- 
mately affecting. 

ON HIS LOSS OF SIGHT.* 

" I am old and blind ! 
Men point at me as smitten by God's frown ; 
Afflicted and deserted of my kind ; 
Yet I am not cast down. 



* This sublime and affecting production was but lately 
discovered among the remains of our great epic poet, and 

m 4 



168 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" I am weak, yet strong ; 
I murmur not that I no longer see ; 
Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong, 
Father Supreme ! to thee. 

" merciful one ! 
When men are farthest, then thou art most near; 
"When friends pass by, my weakness shun, 
Thy chariot I hear. 

" Thy glorious face 
Is leaning towards me ; and its holy light 
Shines in upon my lonely dwelling-place — 
And there is no more night. 

" On my bended knee 
I recognise thy purpose, clearly shown : 
My vision thou hast dimm'd that I may see 
Thyself — thyself alone. 

" I have nought to fear ; 
This darkness is the shadow of thy wing ; 
Beneath it I am almost sacred, here 
Can come no evil thing. 

" Oh ! I seem to stand 
Trembling, where foot of mortal ne'er hath been, 
Wrapp'd in the radiance of thy sinless land, 
Which eye hath never seen. 



is published in the recent Oxford edition of "Milton's 
Works." But there is a modern smoothness in this poem 
that suggests a doubt of its authenticity. 



MILTON. 169 

" "Visions come and go ; 
Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng ; 
From angel lips I seem to hear the flow 
Of soft and holy song. 

" It is nothing now, 
When heaven is opening on my sightless eyes — 
When airs from Paradise refresh my brow, 
The earth in darkness lies. 

" In a purer clime 
My being fills with rapture — waves of thought 
Roll in upon my spirit — strains sublime 
Break over me unsought. 

" Give me now my lyre ! 
I feel the stirrings of a gift divine, 
Within my bosom glows unearthly fire, 
Lit by no skill of mine." 

The literary influence of the Bible was never 
more manifest in any writer or poet than Milton. 
He had wandered through the regions of ancient 
classic story, knew their riches, thoroughly valued 
them at their full worth, perhaps (to judge by the 
frequency with which he quotes from classic lite- 
rature and personages) beyond their merits. But 
when he wanted a theme for a poem to be be- 
queathed as an imperishable legacy to his country, 
he goes not to human, but divine sources for inspi- 
ration. Milton describes himself in the invocation 
to Light as " smit with the love of sacred song ;" 



170 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

and hence the fall of man, and his restoration — 
Bible truths ! The grand themes of its records 
and prophecies, form the subjects of the two com- 
panion poems on which Milton's fame popularly 
rests. The " Samson Agonistes " is another 
Bible narrative, grand and terrible rather than 
interesting or affecting. The story of Samson 
in the sacred page supplies the valuable lesson, 
that no external gifts and endowments can com- 
pensate for the absence of a prudent well-balanced 
mind. The blessing of a gift depends on our 
wisdom in using it. Samson had strength, but 
not wisdom. He fulfilled his mission as an in- 
strument of divine vengeance on the Philistines, 
but left us a warning rather than an example. 
Milton delineates with awful distinctness the suf- 
ferings and humiliation of Israel's champion ; his 
rage and anguish, both fierce and undisciplined ; 
and his final death-triumph, when, his past 
strength returning, he bowed the strong pillars 
of the Philistine temple like reeds, and brought 
down the massive structure on his mocking foes, 
sharing himself in the death he dealt to thousands. 
The " Paradise Regained " was suggested to 
Milton by Thomas Ellwood the Quaker, who was 
his friend, and had been wont to read Latin with 
and for him. He had read Milton's deathless 
epic ; and while he " modestly and freely " com- 
mended it, he said to the blind poet, " Thou hast 



MILTON. 171 

said much, here of paradise lost, but what hast 
thou to say of paradise found ? " Milton made no 
reply then, but at a later period he showed him 
the " Paradise Regained," saying, " This is owing 
to you ; for you put it into my head by the question 
you put to me at Chalfont*, which before I had 
not thought of." 

The secular literature of all the peoples of 
earth, ancient or modern, does not furnish more 
than four or five epic poems that will at all bear 
comparison with Milton's. Homer's fC Iliad," 
Virgil's "iEneid," Dante's "Divina Commedia," 
Tasso's " Jerusalem," and Camoens's " Lusiad," 
are among the gems that on the finger of Time 
glisten for ever. Competent critics, however, have 
assigned the meed of highest praise to Milton. 

Notwithstanding the disfavour in which the 
great poet was held, and contrary to the expecta- 
tion of his timid publisher, his great poem was 
appreciated by those whose praise was fame, men 
of opposite opinions to Milton, and whose appro- 
bation was compelled by the force of his genius. 
Sir John Denham, himself a poet, and a courtier 
also, entered the House of Commons with a proof 
sheet of the " Paradise Lost," wet from the press, 
and said, " This is part of the noblest poem that 

* Chalfont, St. Giles, Bucks, where Milton lived in a 
pleasant cottage, procured by Ellwood, during the preva- 
lence of the plague in London. 



172 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

ever was written in any language or in any age. 5 '* 
John Dryden, the first critic, and, except Milton, 
the greatest poet of the time, said quaintly, " This 
man cuts us all out, and the ancients too." 
Subsequently he recorded his praise in verse. 

" Three poets in three different ages born, 
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn : 
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed ; 
The next in Majesty; in both the last. 
The force of nature could no farther go ; 
To make a third she joined the other two." 

The universal voice of posterity has fully con- 
firmed that praise. And though party malice 
for a time shrouded the lustre of his name, and 
some biographies, particularly that by Dr. John- 
son, were calculated to give a false view of John 
Milton as a man and a Christian, and were scarcely 
just to him as a poet, yet these mists and glooms 
have now cleared away, and we behold the great 
poet shining as one of the brightest constellations 
in the resplendent heaven of genius. 

Milton was so beyond our common humanity 
in his genius and his virtues, that his misfortunes 
seem essential to connect him with us, and to pre- 
vent our sympathy entirely merging in wonder 
and admiration. The poet is a seraph belonging 

* Richardson is the authority for this : it has been 
doubted by modern biographers. 



ANDREW MAE YELL. 173 

to another sphere. Old, poor, and blind, he is 
a man, and our hearts throb out in love and 
reverence towards him. 

The age of Milton, like that of his predecessor 
Shakspeare, was prolific in great men. There 
was, however, far less originality than in the pre- 
ceding time. Talent rather than genius was the 
characteristic of the period. 

Milton's immediate friend, the noble Andrew 
Marvell, deserves an honoured remembrance, not 
only because he was Milton's friend, but because 
he was a fine writer and a good man ; incorruptible 
in a venal age. The anecdote of Lord Danby seek- 
ing him out in his obscure lodging, and offering 
him royal patronage and an immediate sum of 
money, as evidence of the king's sincere admiration 
of him, and Marvell wittily but firmly refusing 
the offer, saying his dinner was provided, will 
endear his name to all lovers of true disinterested 
patriotism as long as public virtue wakes a re- 
sponsive throb in the human heart. 

Marvell enjoyed a high reputation in his own 
time. But it seems strange to modern readers, 
that his noble commendatory lines prefixed to 
Milton's epic should have been necessary to aid 
the book in obtaining the suffrage of the public ; 
for, it is evident, his prefatory poem, and Dr. 
Barrow's Latin exordium, were both judged ne- 
cessary by the timid publisher to propitiate sue- 



174 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

cess. Posterity feel that those great men received 
rather than conferred honour by their names being 
prefixed to Milton's work. 

Marvell was chiefly a satirist * : his most power- 
ful writings both in prose and verse were sarcasms 
on the vices of the age, a fruitful theme ; and he 
spared neither king, prelates, peers, nor commons 
when they merited censure. His works, referring 
rather to the passing events than to general topics, 
are now read more by the curious in the rise and 
progress of English satire, than by the general 
public. His " Naked Truth," and " Mr. Smirke, 
or the Divine in Mode," are pungent not more for 
their severity than their truth. 

Marvell was to the puritans and liberals of those 
times what Butler was to the royalists ; as much, 
however, transcending Butler in a noble grateful 
heart, as it must be confessed Marvell was excelled 
by Butler in clearness, terseness, epigrammatic 
point, and brilliancy. The easy flow, the matchless 
rhymes, the distinct sharp point of Butler's verse, 
have made his poem " Hudibras " admired even by 
those who disliked his principles and were shocked 
at his indecency. 

At the town of Newport Pagnell there is an 

* Bishop Hall, so well known and esteemed for his reli- 
gious writings, is the first eminent English satirist, — con- 
demning the follies of his own times in racy verse. 



BUTLER. 175 

old house, yet standing, where tradition says Sir 
Samuel Luke resided, a puritan in religion and a 
republican in politics. During the protectorate, 
when Butler's opinions might have subjected him 
to annoyance, or it may be to persecution (for 
men of every party were then inclined to se- 
verity), Sir Samuel Luke took the poet to his 
house, where he resided twelve years in safe 
shelter and studious ease. Whether he was a 
guest, or held the office of tutor in the family, is 
not certainly known, but it is an unquestioned 
fact that after the Restoration Butler held up his 
patron and protector to universal ridicule as 
" Hudibras." He cleverly caricatured not only 
Sir Samuel Luke, but the religious opinions held 
by some of the wisest divines, and certainly by 
one of the greatest poets of that or any age ; and 
poured contempt upon men whose patriotism has 
never been questioned even by those who differed 
from them. His poem so abounded in wit and 
genius that it served the royal party more than 
any work of that age ; it was read and quoted by 
king and courtiers, and all who loved to have a 
laugh at the expense of religion and decorum. 
And some of its pungent couplets have become 
incorporated with our language, for the truths they 
certainly contain : fine gems whatever the setting ! 
But though thus popular, the arrows of his wit 
supplying the empty quivers of many a fopling 



176 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

courtier, Butler was doomed to suffer from in- 
gratitude. He was amused and wearied with 
false promises of permanent assistance, consigned 
to neglect, died in an obscure lodging nearly- 
destitute, the expenses of his funeral being paid 
by a friend. Among the number of 

" Mighty poets in their misery dead," 

Butler's name stands prominent. If we are to 
judge of the party he aided by the way they 
treated him, we should be constrained to say the 
sorrowful death of Butler was more condem- 
natory of them and their heartlessness, than all 
the volumes of their enemies. 

Our English literature is peculiarly rich in 
satire. The first eminent satirist was good Bishop 
Hall, Marvell and Butler followed. Dryden, who 
tried and succeeded in nearly all kinds of com- 
position, was peculiarly happy and forcible in 
satire. But his name must be reserved until we 
come to speak of the rise of criticism in our 
land. 

The age of Milton was also that of many great 
divines, among whom Chillingworth, Barrow, Til- 
lotson, Sherlock, Owen, and Baxter, are deservedly 
celebrated for purity of life, great learning, and, 
notwithstanding their great differences of opinion, 
the service their writings rendered to the cause of 
piety. Baxter, among innumerable excellences 



BAXTER. 177 

of life and writings, was greatly in advance of his 
age in liberality to those who differed from him. 
Of theological controversies he says, — 

u My mind being these many years immersed in studies 
of this nature, and having also long wearied myself in 
searching what fathers and schoolmen have said of such 
things before us, and my genius abhorring confusion and 
equivocals, I came, by many years longer study, to perceive 
that most of the doctrinal controversies among Protestants 
are far more about equivocal words than matter ; and it 
wounded my soul to perceive what work both tyrannical 
and unskilful disputing clergymen had made these thirteen 
hundred years in the world ! Experience, since the year 
1643 till this year, 1675, hath loudly called me to repent of 
my own prejudices, sidings, and censurings of causes and 
persons not understood, and of all the miscarriages of my 
ministry and life that have been thereby caused ; and to 
make it my chief work to call men that are within my 
hearing to more peaceable thoughts, affections, and practices. 
And my endeavours have not been in vain, in that the 
ministers of the county where I lived were very many of 
such a peaceable temper, and a great number more through 
the land, by God's grace (rather than any endeavours of 
mine), are so minded. But the sons of the cowl were ex- 
asperated the more against me, and accounted him to be 
against every man that called all men to love and peace, 
and was for no man as in a contrary way." 

There were also several historical writers eon- 
temporary with Milton, the most memorable, 
perhaps, being the celebrated loyalist and dis- 
tinguished lawyer Lord Clarendon : many of his 
sketches of the celebrated men of his own time 



178 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITEKATUKE, 

are so life-like and truthful, that they can never 
be superseded. All subsequent historians have 
taken his testimony, where it was not too much 
influenced by his manifest, and indeed avowed, 
prejudices. 

Balstrode Whitelocke was of opposite principles 
to Lord Clarendon. He wrote " Memorials of 
English Affairs " from the accession of Charles I. 
to the Restoration. He was the legal adviser of 
the patriot John Hampden, and a strong opponent 
to persecution for religious opinions. 

Bishop Burnet, though somewhat later, may be 
classed within this period. His " History of his 
own Time," though much controverted by those 
who held different political principles to himself, 
will always be read with interest for the clearness 
of the narrative and the vividness of the pictures. 

But, next to Milton, incomparably the greatest 
imaginative writer in that age was John Bunyan. 
The life of this truly great man is well known. 
Born in the poorest ranks, — without education, — ■ 
earning his living by one of the lowest occupations, 
that of a tinker, — nature and grace more than 
compensated to him for the malice of fortune. 
After a riotous youth, we find him (in some 
measure through the instrumentality of a pious 
wife) brought to a knowledge of the highest truth 
- — Gospel truth. His gifts of thought and speech, 
though modestly undervalued by himself, attracted 



JOHN BUNYAN. 179 

attention among religious friends. They entreated 
and laid it upon his conscience, that he should 
exercise those gifts by teaching to others the spi- 
ritual truths he had so fully learned. He yielded ; 
found his words blessed by evidences of usefulness. 
This confirmed him a minister. He had his cre- 
dentials ratified : " seals had been given to his 
ministry, and souls to his hire." But, in the 
licentious time of the Restoration, when floods of 
profligacy poured over the land, and persecution 
arose with added strength, Bunyan was one of 
the first, if not the very first, to suffer for con- 
science' sake. He was consigned to Bedford jail 
twelve years, and there wrote the marvellous alle- 
gory that has chiefly endeared his memory to 
posterity. 

Bunyan may be said to have been to the masses 
what Milton was to the educated. His book, 
long neglected, if not despised, by the great and 
noble, found immediate favour with the people. 

There had been skilful allegories in the English 
language before Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress." 
Stephen Hawes, at a very early period, wrote 
his "Pastime of Pleasure," in which science, 
and abstract virtues and qualities, are allego- 
rised in a style rude but quaint and graphic. 
Then came Spenser's glorious " Faerie Queen," 
a radiant web of beauty. But Bunyan had not 
read these: his library contained the Bible and 



180 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Fox's "Book of Martyrs" only; though certainly 
resemblances of thought to the "Faerie Queen" 
are sometimes so apparent as to be very striking. 
Spenser's tangled wood of error, into which the 
perplexed knight strays, and Bunyan's "slough of 
despond," are sufficiently similar, as hindrances in 
the outset to Knight and Pilgrim, as to excite 
surprise at the coincidence. 

There is, however, this superiority in the al- 
legory of the great prose poet, that it has a human 
interest very different from the abstractions and 
mystic idealities of Spenser's luxuriant poem. 
Few, even among educated people, are able to 
read the "Faerie Queen" through, without weari- 
ness, spite of its exquisite passages and descrip- 
tions ; while, in Bunyan's matchless allegory, all, 
from the child to the hoary-headed sage, agree 
that the interest of the narrative alone, keeps 
alive the attention from the first to the last page 
of the "Pilgrim." Its characters, its scenes, are 
never forgotten ; they are constantly recurring as 
expressive of individual experience, or descriptive 
of persons and instances often met with in society. 
All is real and true. 

The spiritual value, the hidden beauty folded 
up in that admirable work, are beyond praise. 
Next to the Bible, it has exercised the most wide- 
spread influence, reaching sections of society to 
whom books were scarcely ever addressed, and 



JOHN BTJNYAN. 181 

directing the attention of readers to God, to 
eternity, to their state by nature as sinners, and 
their state by grace as the redeemed of the 
Saviour. The literary and spiritual influence 
combined of the Bible was never more power- 
fully shown than in the production of this truly 
original book. The fame of its author has gone 
on increasing with every succeeding generation. 
In our own time, poets, scholars, critics, and 
historians, have vied with each other in eulo- 
gising it ; and their commendations have made 
the book as much sought after by the great and 
noble, as it has been cherished from the first by 
the poor and lowly. Of no other book in the 
English language can it be said, that it equally 
pleases and instructs the young and old, the rich 
and poor, the learned and the ignorant. 



* s 



182 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



CHAP. XI. 

FEMALE WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

It is a question that will arise in the mind of 
every thoughtful reader —what were the mental 
characteristics of the women of the time of Milton? 
Never, perhaps, in any age, did the extremes of 
virtue and vice exist in greater contrast than at 
this period. Unblushing profligacy in the court, 
and the general frivolity of fashionable manners, 
destroyed the lovely feminine attraction of mo- 
desty in many high-born women of the time. 

Yet there were noble exceptions to the general 
laxity of manners and morals. Two of the most 
beautiful biographies ever penned by female 
writers belong to this period. It adds to the 
value of these works that they were composed by 
ladies who were closely connected with the leading 
men of the two opposite parties, royalist and repub- 
lican, — Lady Fanshawe, the wife of Sir Richard 
Fanshawe the eminent royalist, and Mrs. Lucy 
Hutchinson, the wife of Colonel Hutchinson the 
republican governor of Nottingham Castle during 
the civil wars. Each of these ladies wrote the life 
and experiences of her husband ; each saw the same 



MRS. HUTCHINSON. 183 

events from different points of view ; each supplies 
a sort of domestic commentary on the public 
affairs of the time. It is curious to observe that 
the same motive influenced both in writing the 
memoirs in question. Each desired to present to 
her son a picture of a lost father's worth, and a 
model of the Christian gentleman, for imitation. 
Each was equally admirable in all feminine attri- 
butes of loyalty, sweetness, affection, discretion; 
and what some one has called " the glorious 
faculty of self help." 

Unaffected fervent piety was equally their cha- 
racteristic, though they were of different creeds 
and modes of faith, as to external worship. But 
truly spiritual Christians are all of one church; 
and though in this world, bv reason of seeing 
" through a glass darkly," they differ on minor 
points, they all will meet in that land where 
every mist and obscurity shall be dispelled by the 
glorious rising of the Sun of Righteousness. 

Their qualifications for the work of authorship 
were about equal. Mrs. Hutchinson had the 
better education, and the more philosophical 
mind; Lady Fanshawe a more unstudied grace, 
and quaint naive simplicity. 

Both were sufferers in the commotions of the 
time, and by the changes and reverses that befell 
their husbands ; and though both were necessarily 
political partisans, they were so through the in- 

> 4 



184 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

fluence of their affections., and in obedience to 
their relative duties. There is something instruc- 
live to all in the fine portrait of her husband's 
virtues given by Mrs. Hutchinson. 

" To number his virtues is to give the epitome of bis life, 
which was nothing else but a progress from one degree of 
virtue to another, till in a short time he arrived to that 
height which many longer lives could never reach ; and had 
I but the power of rightly disposing and relating them, his 
single example would be more instructive than all the rules 
of the best moralists ; for his practice was of a more divine 
extraction drawn from the word of God, and wrought up 
by the assistance of His Spirit ; therefore in the head of all 
his virtues I shall set that which was the head and spring 
of them all, his Christianity — for this alone is the true 
royal blood that runs through all the body of virtue. 
# * h* * ^ * * 

" By Christianity I intend that universal habit of grace 
which is wrought in a soul by the regenerating Spirit of 
God ; whereby the whole creature is resigned up into the 
divine will and love, and all its actions directed to the obe- 
dience and glory of its Maker. 

" He hated persecution for religion, and was always a 
champion for all religious people against their great oppres- 
sors. He detested all scoffs at worship, though such a one 
as he was not persuaded of it. Whatever he practised in 
religion was neither for faction nor advantage, but contrary 
to it and purely for conscience sake. He had rather a firm 
impression than a great memory ; yet he was forgetful of 
nothing but injuries. His own integrity made him credu- 
lous of other men's till reason and experience convinced 
him. He was as ready to hear as to give counsel, and never 
pertinacious in his will when his reason was convinced, 



MRS. HUTCHINSON. 185 

"In matters of faith his reason always submitted to the 
word of God, and what he could not comprehend he would 
believe because it was written : in all other things the 
greatest names in the world could never lead him without 
reason. He very well understood his own advantages, 
natural parts, gifts, and acquirements, yet so as neither to 
glory of them to others, nor overvalue himself for them; for 
he had an excellent virtuous modesty, which shut out all 
vanity of mind, and yet admitted the true understanding of 
himself, which was requisite for the best improvement of all 
his talents. 

" He contemned none that were not wicked in whatever 
low degree of nature or fortune they were otherwise : 
wherever he saw wisdom, learning, or other virtues in men, 
he honoured them highly, and admired them to their full 
rate, but never gave himself blindly up to the conduct of 
the greatest master. Love itself, which was as powerful 
in his as in any soul, rather quickened than blinded the 
eyes of his judgment in discerning the imperfections of those 
that were most dear to him. His soul ever reigned as king 
in the internal throne, and never was captive to his sense. 

* # * *£ ^ ^ * 

" If he were defective in any part of justice, it was when 

it was in his power to punish those who had injured him ; 

whom I have so often known him to recompense with 

favours instead of revenge, that his friends used to tell him, 

if they had any occasion to make him favourably partial to 

them, they would provoke him by an injury. He that was 

as a rock to all assaults of might and violence, was the 

gentlest, easiest soul to kindness, of which the least warm 

spark melted him into any thing that was not sinful. There 

never was a man more exactly just in the performance of 

all duties to all relations and persons. 

* * * * * * * 

u For conjugal affection to his wife, it was such in him. 



186 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

as whosoever could draw out a rule of honour, kindness, 
and religion to be practised in that estate, need no more but 
exactly draw out his example. Never had man a greater 
passion for a woman, and a more just esteem of a wife, yet he 
was not uxorious, nor remitted he that just rule which it was 
her honour to obey, but managed the reins of government 
with such prudence and affection, that she who would not 
delight in such an honourable and advantageable subjection 
must have wanted a reasonable soul. He governed by per- 
suasion, which he never employed but to things honourable 
and profitable for herself. He loved her soul and her 
honour more than her outside. If he esteemed her at a 
higher rate than she in herself could have deserved, he was 
the author of that virtue he doated on, while she only re- 
flected his own glories upon him : all that she was, was 
him. while he was here ; and all that she is now is at best 
but his pale shade. 

" He was so truly magnanimous, that prosperity could 
never lift him up in the least, nor give him any tincture of 
vain glory, nor diminish a general affability, courtesy, and 
civility, that he always showed to all persons. When he 
was most exalted, he was most merciful and compassionate 
to those that were humbled. At the same time that he 
vanquished any enemy, he cast away all his ill-will to him, 
and entertained thoughts of love and kindness as soon as 
he ceased to be in a posture of opposition. He was as far 
from meanness as from pride, as truly generous as humble, 
and showed his noble spirit more in his adversity than in 
his prosperous condition : he vanquished all the spite of his 
enemies by his manly suffering, and all the contempts they 
could cast at him were their shame, not his." 

This extract, abridged as it is, we may regard 
as the noblest monument the true-hearted wife 



MRS. HUTCHIXSON. 187 

could rear to her husband. No brass or marble 
could so keep his memory and her affection alive 
to all generations as these glowing and thoughtful 
passages. 

The comprehensive brevity of her style is well 
shown in the following eulogy on England, her 
laws, and people. 

" Better laws and a happier constitution of government 
no nation ever enjoyed, it being a mixture of monarchy, 
aristocracy, and democracy, with sufficient fences against 
the pest of every one of those forms, — tyranny, faction, and 
confusion. Yet it is not possible for man to devise such just 
and excellent bounds, as will keep in wild ambition when 
prince's flatterers encourage that beast to break his fence, 
which it hath often done with miserable consequences both 
to the prince and people ; but could never in any age so 
tread down popular liberty but that it arose again with re- 
newed vigour, till at length it trod on those that trampled 
it before. And in the just bounds wherein our kings were 
so well hedged in, the surrounding princes have with terror 
seen the reproof of their usurpations over their free breth- 
ren, whom they rule rather as slaves than subjects, and 
are only served for fear, but not for love ; whereas this 
people have ever been as affectionate to good, as unpliable 
to bad sovereigns. Xor is it only valour and generosity 
that renown this nation ; in arts we have advanced equal to 
our neighbours, and in those that are most excellent, ex- 
ceeded them. The world hath not yielded men more famous 
in navigation, nor ships better built or furnished. Agricul- 
ture is as ingeniously practised. The English archers were 
the terror of Christendom, and their clothes the ornament. 
But these low things bounded not their great spirits ; in all 
ages it hath vielded men as famous in all kinds of learning 



188 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

as Greece or Italy can boast of. And to complete the crown 
of all their glory reflected from the lustre of their ingenuity, 
valour, wit, learning, justice, wealth, and bounty, their 
piety and devotion to God and his worship hath made them 
one of the most truly noble nations in the Christian world ; 
God having, as it were, enclosed a people here out of the 
waste common of the world, to serve him with a pure and 
undefiled worship. Lucius, the British king, was one of 
the first monarchs of the earth that received the faith of 
Christ into his heart and kingdom ; Henry the Eighth, the 
first prince that broke the antichristian yoke off from his 
own and his subjects' necks. Here it was that the first 
Christian emperor received his crown ; here began the early 
dawn of gospel light by Wickliffe and other faithful wit- 
nesses, whom God raised up after the black and horrid mid- 
night of antichristianism. And a more plentiful harvest of 
devout confessors, constant martyrs, and holy worshippers 
of God, hath not grown in any field of the church through- 
out all ages, than those whom God hath here glorified his 
name and gospel by ; yet hath not this wheat been without 
its tares. God, in comparison with other countries, hath 
made this as a paradise, so, to complete the parallel, the 
serpent hath in all times been busy to seduce, and not un- 
successful, ever stirring up opposers to the infant truths of 
Christ. ******* 
" When the dawn of the gospel began to break upon this 
isle after the dark midnight of papacy, the morning was 
more cloudy here than in other places, by reason of the 
state interest which was mixing and working itself into the 
interest of religion, and which in the end quite wrought it 
out. King Henry the Eighth, who by his royal authority 
cast out the Pope, did not intend the people of the land 
should have any ease of oppression, but only changed their 
foreign yoke for home-bred fetters, dividing the pope's 
spoils between himself and his bishops, who cared not for 



MRS. HUTCHINSON. 189 

their father at Rome so long as they enjoyed their patri- 
mony and their honours here under another head ; so that I 
cannot subscribe to those who entitle that king to the honour 
of the Reformation. But even then there wanted not many 
who discerned the corruptions that were retained in the 
church, and eagerly applied their endeavours to obtain a 
purer reformation ; against whom, those who saw no need of 
further reformation, either through excess of joy for that 
which was already brought forth, or else, through a secret 
love of superstition rooted in their hearts, thought this too 
much — were bitterly incensed, and hating that light which 
reproved their darkness, everywhere stirred up spirits of 
envy and persecution against them. Upon the great revolu- 
tion which took place at the accession of Queen Elizabeth 
to the crown, the nation became divided into three great 
factions, the papists, the state protestants, and the more 
religious zealots, who afterwards were branded with the 
name of puritans. In vain it was for these to address the 
queen and the parliament, for the bishops, under the specious 
pretences of uniformity and obedience, procured severe 
punishments to be inflicted on such as durst gainsay their 
determinations in all things concerning worship, whereupon 
some, even in those godly days, lost their lives." 

Though Colonel Hutchinson had fought for 
the republic, he disliked the turn affairs took 
when Cromwell was raised to the supreme power, 
and, true to the principles of integrity lauded by 
his wife, he refused office during the Protectorate, 
and retired to his country house, lived in the 
intellectual companionship he loved, until the 
Restoration, when the share he had taken in the 
condemnation of King Charles exposed him to 



190 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

danger. He was imprisoned in an unwholesome 
place (Deal Castle), and there died, leaving his 
noble wife to embalm his name in one of the most 
admirable biographies of that or any age. 

Lady Fanshawe was truly a womanly woman. 
Incidentally, as matters of course, she relates some 
instances of her devoted love to her husband that 
are full of the most tender and genuine heroism, 
Sir Richard, like many royalists, had perilled his 
life and impoverished his family in the service of 
the Kino*. During the Protectorate he was taken 
prisoner after the battle of Worcester, and in 
dread of death was confined in a small room at 
Whitehall. Lady Fanshawe in great distress 
came to London, and thus describes her trials : — 

" During the time of his imprisonment * I failed not con- 
stantly to go, when the clock struck four in the morning, 
with a dark lantern in my hand, all alone and on foot, from 
my lodging in Chancery Lane at my cousin Young's, to 
Whitehall, in at the entry that went out of King Street 
into the Bowling Green. There I would go under his 
window and softly call him. He, after the first time ex- 
cepted, never failed to put out his head at the first call. 
Thus we talked together, and sometimes I was so wet with 
rain that it went in at my neck and out at my heels. He 
directed me how I should make my addresses, which I did 



* The battle of Worcester was fought the 3rd of Sep- 
tember ; consequently, as some time had elapsed before the 
prisoners came to London, it must have been the depth of 
winter. 



LADY FA^SHAWE. 191 

ever to their General — Cromwell, who had a great respect 
for him, and would have bought him off to his service upon 
any terms." 

Through her exertions Sir Richard was bailed ; 
though Sir Harry Vane and many influential ad- 
visers of Cromwell were opposed to his release. 

The account she gives of herself and her edu- 
cation are interesting, as a picture of the training 
of a young lady in the seventeenth century. 

"Xow it is necessary for me to say something of my 
mother's education of me, which was with all the advan- 
tages that time afforded ; both for working all sorts of fine 
works with my needle, and learning French, singing, lute, 
the virginals, and dancing ; and notwithstanding I learned as 
well as most did, yet was I wild to that degree, that the 
hours of my beloved recreation took up too much of my 
time, for I loved riding in the first place, running, and all 
active pastimes ; in short, I was that which we graver people 
call a hoyting girl ; but to be just to myself, I never did 
mischief to myself or other people, nor one immodest word or 
action in my life, though skipping and activity was my de- 
light. But upon my mother's de^th I then began to reflect, 
and, as an offering to her memory, I flung away those 
little childishnesses that had formerly possessed me, and by 
my father's command took upon me charges of his house and 
family, which I so ordered by my excellent mother's ex- 
ample as found acceptance in his sight." 

Lady Fanshawe's advice to her son is worthy 
of being studied by all young persons for its 
sound practical wisdom. 



192 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" Endeavour to be innocent as a dove, but as wise as a 
serpent ; and let this lesson direct -you most in the greatest 
extremes of fortune. Hate idleness, and curb all passions. 
Be true in all words and actions. Unnecessarily deliver 
not your opinion ; but when you do, let it be just, well con- 
sidered, and plain. Be charitable in all thought, word, and 
deed, and ever ready to forgive injuries done to yourself, 
and be more pleased to do good than to receive good. 

"Be civil and obliging to all, dutiful where God and na- 
ture command you; but friend to one, and that friendship 
keep sacred, as the greatest tie upon earth, and be sure to 
ground it upon virtue, for no other is either happy or lasting. 

" Endeavour always to be content in that estate of life 
which it hath pleased God to call you to, and think it a 
great fault not to employ your time either for the good of 
your soul, or improvement of your understanding, health, 
or estate ; and as these are the most pleasant pastimes, so it 
will make you a cheerful old age, which is as necessary for 
you to design, as to make provision to support the infir- 
mities which decay of strength brings ; and as it was never 
seen that a vicious youth terminated in a contented, cheer- 
ful old age^ but perished out of countenance. Ever keep 
the best qualified persons company, out of whom you will 
find advantage, and reserve some hours daily to examine 
yourself and fortune ; for if you embark yourself in per- 
petual conversation or recreation, you will certainly ship- 
wreck your mind and fortune. Remember the proverb, 
4 Such as your company is such is the man,' and have glo- 
rious actions before your eyes, and think what shall be 
your portion in heaven as well as what you desire on 
earth." 

The life of this admirable woman was full of 
trials; travels by sea and land, sickness, loss of 
children, and public responsibilities. On the 



DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 193 

Restoration her husband was ambassador to 
Spain, and died in Madrid soon after he entered 
on his embassy, leaving his wife in straitened cir- 
cumstances, with four young daughters and one 
infant son to maintain and educate. For that 
son she wrote her husband's memoirs. The Kins:, 
whose cause had been so warmly espoused by 
both husband and wife, to the sacrifice of fortune, 
comfort, and safety, neglected the widow and 
orphans of his faithful servant; and she never 
obtained any kind of payment or compensation 
for her losses. 

It is significant of the period we are now consi- 
dering, that these two excellent books should have 
both continued in manuscript. The prejudice 
against female authorship must have been one 
reason for so long withholding them from the 
public. Except the beautiful biographies of 
quaint old Isaac Walton, there was at the time 
they were written nothing in the way of memoirs 
superior to them. The publication of both books 
has been recent; that of Mrs. Hutchinson's in 
1806, and Lady Fanshawe's so recently as 1830. 

The female poets of that age were not nume- 
rous. The most voluminous was Margaret, 
Duchess of Newcastle. It was the fashion of 
Charles and his court to laugh at her productions, 
and call her " the mad Duchess of Newcastle." 
Laughter, being contagious, easy, and pleasant, it 

o 



194 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

is scarcely wonderful that many have joined in it 
who know nothing of the Duchess of Newcastle 
but her name. 

She was a fervent royalist, the daughter of Sir 
Charles Lucas of Colchester, and her husband 
the Duke was as loyal as herself. They suffered 
in common with their party, and endured many 
years of exile, which the Duchess beguiled with 
literary pursuits, writing chiefly to amuse her 
husband, whom she lauded in such high-flown 
strains that it provoked the sneers of the wicked 
wits of Charles's profligate court. A wife de- 
voted to her husband, and glorying to avow it, 
was a novelty in that corrupt circle, and reflected 
by contrast too powerfully on the coldness and 
levity of the ladies of that court. Even in this 
day of female authorship few, if any, can compare 
in the extent of their labours with the Duchess, 
who wrote twelve folio volumes of plays, poems, 
orations, philosophical discourses, &c. In judg- 
ment and taste she was very deficient, but pos- 
sessed fancy, invention, and industry. Some of 
her fantasies are elegantly expressed. 

OF THE THEME OF LOVE. 

" O, love, how thou art tired out with rhyme ! 
Thou art a tree whereon all poets climb ; 
And from the branches every one takes some 
Of thy sweet fruit, which Fancy feeds upon. 



MRS. CATHERINE PHILIPS. 195 

But now thy tree is left so bare and poor, 
That the}' can hardly gather one plum more.'' 

THE FUNERAL OF CALAMITY. 

" Calamity was laid on Sorrow's hearse, 
And covering had of melancholy verse ; 
Compassion, a kind friend, did mourning go, 
And tears about the corpse, as flowers, strow ; 
A garland of deep sighs by Pity made, 
Upon Calamity's sad corpse was laid ; 
Bells of Complaint did ring it to the grave; 
Poets a monument of Fame it gave." 

" The Pastime and Recreation of the Queen of 
the Fairies in Fairy Land" is her roost admired 
poem. The following lines, describing the adorn- 
ments of the Fair j Queen, are very poetic. 

" She on a dewy leaf doth bathe, 
And as she sits the leaf doth wave ; 
There like a new-fallen flake of snow, 
Doth her white limbs in beauty show. 
Her garments fair her maids put on, 
Made of the pure light of the sun." 

Mrs. Catherine Philips, who died in her thirty- 
third year, was an ornament of this age. Dryden 
and Cowley praised her genius, and Jeremy Tay- 
lor, the " Milton of Divines," addressed to her his 
" Discourse on Friendship.*' The following poem 
sufficiently attests the grace and sweetness of 
her style. 

o 2 



196 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

A COUNTRY LIFE. 

" How sacred and how innocent 
A country life appears ! 
How free from tumult, discontent, 
From flattery, or fears ! 

" This was the first and happiest life, 
When man enjoy' d himself; 
Till pride exchanged peace for strife. 
And happiness for pelf. 

" 'Twas here the poets were inspir'd, 
Here taught the multitude ; 
The brave they here with honour fir'd, 
And civiliz'd the rude. 

" That golden age did entertain 
No passion but of love ; 
The thoughts of ruling and of gain 
Did ne'er their fancies move. 

" Them that do covet only rest, 
A cottage will suffice ; 
It is not brave to be possest 
Of earth ; but to despise. 

" Opinion is the rate of things, 

From hence our peace doth flow ; 
I have a better fate than kings, 
Because I think it so. 

" When all the stormy world doth roar, 
How unconcerned am I ! 
I cannot fear to tumble lower, 
Who never could be high. 



COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA. 197 

41 Secure in these unenvied walls 
I think not on the state, 
And pity no man's case that falls 
From his ambitious height. 

" Silence and innocence are safe; 
A heart that's nobly true, 
At all those little arts can laugh, 
That do the world subdue." 

An exceedingly elegant poetess of this time 
was Anne, Countess of Winchelsea. It was her 
great merit to write with nature, simplicity, and 
purity in an artificial and corrupt age. Between 
the publication of the " Paradise Lost " and that of 
Pope's " Windsor Forest," she alone, of all the 
poets, used natural rather than classical imagery « 
"The Nocturnal Keverie," "The Atheist and 
the Acorn," are well known and admired ; nor is 
the following, though sad, less graceful. 

life's progress. 

" How gaily is at first begun 

Our life's uncertain race ! 
Whilst yet that sprightly morning sun, 
With which we first set out to run, 

Enlightens all the place. 

" How smiling the world's prospect lies, 
How tempting to go through ! 
Not Canaan to the prophet's eyes, 
From Pisgah, with a sweet surprise, 
Did more inviting show. 
o 3 



198 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" How soft the first ideas prove 

Which wander through our minds ! 
How full the joys, how free the love, 
Which does that early season move, 

As flowers the western winds ! 

" Our sighs are then but vernal air, 

But April drops our tears ; 
Which swiftly passing, all grows fair, 
Whilst beauty compensates our care, 

And youth each vapour clears. 

" But, oh, too soon, alas ! we climb, 

Scarce feeling we ascend, 
The gently rising hill of time, 
From whence with grief we see that prime, 

And all its sweetness end. 

" The die now cast, our station known, 

Fond expectation past ; 
The thorns which former days had sown, 
To crops of late repentance grown, 

Through which we toil at last ; 

" Whilst every care's a driving harm, 

That helps to bear us down ; 
While faded smiles no more can charm, 
But every tear's a winter storm, 

And every look a frown." 

Dorothy, the daughter of Lord Coventry, 
Keeper of the Seal to James I., and wife of Sir 
John Packington, was a remarkable literary or- 
nament of the seventeenth century. The author- 
ship of that compendium of practical divinity 



LADY RACHEL RUSSELL. 199 

" The Whole Duty of Man" has been ascribed to 
her, on evidence that it seems difficult to doubt. 
Rev. Thomas Caulton, vicar of Worksop in Not- 
tinghamshire, on his death-bed, revealed the secret 
of the authorship of that work, and produced the 
manuscript in Lady Packington's own hand- 
writing. She died in 1679. In the church of 
Hampton Lovett, in Worcestershire, she and her 
husband are interred ; and their grandson says of 
them, that he was " tried for his life, and spent the 
greatest part of his fortune in adhering to King 
Charles I. ; and the latter (Lady Packington) 
justly reputed the authoress of The Whole Duty 
of Man, who was exemplary for her great piety 
and goodness." 

Lady Rachel Russell's name is generally known 
and deservedly esteemed. Her letters have some- 
thing more to recommend them than mere literary 
merit. They are full of real feeling, actual expe- 
riences, and genuine piety. 

These admirable women were all as remarkable 
for their virtues as their talents. They were 
lights in a dark age; and time, in reference to 
the two first, and the last named, has added to 
rather than diminished their brightness. 



o4 



200 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



CHAP. XII. 

DRYDEN AND THE RISE OF CRITICISM IN ENGLAND. FRENCH 

INFLUENCE. — LITERARY PATRONS. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS 

OF PERIODICALS. DE FOE, ADDISON, STEELE. 

Milton is not the only great poet whose writings 
are an exposition of his life. Dryden's great 
genius, his varied course and frequent changes of 
opinion, his alternations of feeling from piety to 
profligacy, may all be traced equally in his life 
and in his writings, — the one elucidating the 
other. He was the son of a worthy Puritan in 
Northamptonshire, and received a liberal educa- 
tion at Westminster School. His first poetical 
production was an heroic poem in honour of 
Oliver Cromwell, written in a very animated 
style. He says of his hero, — 

a His greatness he deriv'd from Heaven alone, 
For he was great e'er fortune made him so ; 
And wars, like mists that rise against the sun, 
Made him but greater seem, not greater grow." 

At the Restoration, Dryden had done with the 
Puritans : he hastened to write poetical addresses 
to the King and the Lord Chancellor ; and plays 
being the favourite amusement of the court and 



DRYDEN. 201 

populace, he wrote several that were much ad- 
mired, decency not being then considered essential 
to success. He married a lady of rank, and was 
unhappy in his conjugal relation, — which, perhaps, 
was the reason of the low estimate in which he 
held the female character. He said in one of 
his plays, that " woman was made from the dross 
and refuse of man;" to which Jeremy Collier, 
who censured the licentiousness of the stage with 
unsparing fidelity, replied wittily, " I did not 
know before that a man's dross lay in his ribs ; I 
believe it sometimes lies higher." 

After having fostered the licentiousness of the 
age by the publication of many rhyming dramas 
constructed on the French model, he wrote a 
defence for the Church of England against Dis- 
senters, called " Religio Laid? Soon after this 
he made another change of faith, embracing the 
Roman Catholic persuasion, at the accession of 
James II., and then wrote his w Hind and Pan- 
ther," — a defence of the Church of Rome; in 
which the hind is the Church of Rome, the pan- 
ther the Church of England, and the Indepen- 
dents, Quakers, and Baptists, are represented as 
bears, hares, boars, &c. 

A change of opinion that proceeds from sincere 
conviction, may be a subject of grief and wonder, 
but never of disrespect and scorn. But when 
such a change has been frequent, and always at a 



202 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

time when self-interest was likely to be promoted, 
it is difficult to repress suspicion and indignation. 
The man who was a Puritan under Oliver Crom- 
well, a Churchman under Charles II., and a Ro- 
manist under James II., can scarcely be thought a 
disinterested proselyte. 

The old age of Dryden, when he had by the 
Revolution lost his office of laureate and the 
patronage of the court, was his best period. He 
employed himself in the work of translation from 
the classics, Juvenal, Persius, and Virgil; and 
nobly refused, though requested by his publisher, 
to dedicate the latter to King William III. His 
celebrated ode, " Alexander's Feast," was written 
after the publication of his translations, and his 
Fables still later. He died May, 1700, aged 69, 
having been an interested witness of the civil 
wars, the republic, the restoration, and the revo- 
lution. 

As a poet he does not rank with the great 
creative minds, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton ; 
but he is first in the very next rank. The incon- 
sistency or vacillation of his principles may be 
traced, not only in his themes, but in his style, 
which was so perpetually varied that no English 
writer is so versatile, or has less mannerism. He 
is chargeable with having fostered, if not brought 
in by his rhyming dramatic poems, the vicious 
French style that so long after this period de- 



DRYDEN. 203 

formed our literature ; and yet he is also praised 
for his pure English idiom, in his prose works. In- 
deed Dryden himself says, " If too many foreign 
words are poured in upon us, it looks as if they 
were designed not to assist the natives, but to 
conquer them." 

He was anions: the first Englishmen that 
gave literary portraits of all the great poets of 
the preceding time ; with him the art of criticism 
may be said to have begun in our land. That 
criticism, as a distinct branch of composition, 
should be needed, marks the progress of literature. 
When native authors were few, and libraries 
meagre, people who read criticised for themselves. 
As books multiplied, and different departments of 
literary effort opened, it seemed necessary that 
those whose learning, leisure, taste, and literary 
occupation permitted, should begin in some way to 
cater for the more general reader, — should guide 
the uninitiated into the throng of books, — tell of 
the characters of authors and the subject or style 
of their compositions. This had become necessary 
in Dryden's time ; and ever since then criticism 
has been not only a useful, but an indispensable 
auxiliary to literature. That it should, sometimes 
have been perverted by malignity or ignorance is 
no argument against it. Whenever a literature 
is rich and copious there must always be critics as 
purveyors to the general public. If there have 



204 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

been instances where they have injured authors 
and deceived the public, the shame is with them 
for thus dishonouring a noble and liberal art. 
The remedy is pretty much with the public, who, 
as a rule, had better be more willing to believe a 
favourable than an unfavourable testimony. To 
praise on the authority of others, if an error, is at 
least neither an unsafe nor an invidious error. 
To blame severely without examination is neither 
candid nor just. 

The French taste, before alluded to, came in 
with Charles II. Sparkle, point, wit, coldness, 
were the characteristics of the age; and our 
English vigour of composition greatly declined. 

Another cause that contributed to retard, if 
not to debase literature, was royal and noble 
patronage. The poets had always been accus- 
tomed to be under the protection of some great 
man. Thus Chaucer was protected by John of 
Gaunt, Spenser by Sir Philip Sydney and the 
Earl of Essex, and Shakspeare by the Earl of 
Southampton ; Dryden, by the successive changes 
of his views, had had as many patrons as creeds. 
Nothing could be more unfavourable to the honest 
expression of thought than this practice ; and the 
misery of hope deferred that it often entailed 
on poets, who sued for a patron's grace, has been 
described by Spenser in words that never can be 
forgotten. 



BEADING PUBLIC. 205 

" To lose good days that might be better spent ; 
To waste long nights in peevish discontent ; 
To speed to-day and be put back to-morrow ; 
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow ; 
To have^thy prince's grace yet want her peers' ; * 
To have thy asking, yet wait many years ; 
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares ; 
To eat thy heart with comfortless despairs ; 
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, 
To spend, to give, to wait, to be undone." 

The rise of a reading public in Britain has been 
the remedy for this evil. A really independent 
poet now has no patron but the public. He 
writes for the community at large. And though 
neglect and sorrow may even yet often be the 
portion of genius, the servile adulation of an in- 
dividual, whose promises were made only to be 
delayed and broken, no longer exists to cramp 
the energies and crush the hopes of poets. They 
have doubtless sorrows enough without these 
humiliations being added. 

But how came there a reading public in the 
land ? We have seen that poets who wanted the 
people to know very much of their writings re- 
sorted to dramatic compositions, and the pulpit and 
the stage divided the people between them, before 
the press began to be emancipated. Books, though 

* Alluding to Elizabeth's favour and Lord Burleigh's 
disapprobation. 



206 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

numerous and cheap compared with the olden times, 
yet were the luxury of the affluent. With the ex- 
ception of Bunyan's "Pilgrim" and a few religious 
books, it was not the populace that was addressed 
by writers ; and so little were women thought of 
as readers, that Mr. Macaulay assigns that fact, 
as one reason of the indecency that marked the 
writings of the second Charles's time. Periodicals, 
certainly, may claim to have created and main- 
tained a taste for reading among the people of 
England. Newspapers had been published occa- 
sionally during the reign of James I., and by 
some accounts in the reign of Elizabeth, though 
the three newspapers in the British Museum, 
purporting to be by Lord Burleigh, " The English 
Mercury for preventing False Reports," have been 
lately discovered not to be genuine. It is certain 
there were pamphlets of news, and that in 1622 
Nathaniel Butter established a regular weekly 
publication entitled " The Certain News of this 
present Week." During the civil wars there w T ere 
several newspapers, and they attained great political 
importance ; and so essential was the press con- 
sidered that each army carried a printer with them. 
After the Restoration, in the memorable plague 
year, 1665, w r hile the court was at Oxford, a news- 
paper, called the " Oxford Gazette," w r as published. 
This, after a few numbers, changed its name to 
" The London Gazette," and by that title came 



DANIEL DE FOE. 207 

down uninterruptedly to the present century. " The 
Intelligencer" and "The Observator" were two 
papers successively started by Roger L'Estrange, 
a venal writer, who always in politics sided with 
the prevailing party. It is said, that small as these 
news-books were, there was great difficulty in fill- 
ing them : sometimes a blank leaf was left, and an 
advertisement stated it was left to enable persons 
to write a letter on and send with the paper. 
Another editor very ingeniously fell upon the plan 
of printing portions of the Scripture on one page, 
and in this way inserted the whole of the New 
Testament and great part of the Psalms of David. 

The French preceded us in literary journals by 
a few years. They were with them the product 
of the seventeenth century, and at first originated 
in the ingenious contrivance of Denis de Sallo, a 
counsellor in the parliament of Paris, who in 1665 
published his " Journal des Scavans." He was fol- 
lowed by the celebrated critic Bayle, who brought 
out his Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres 
in 1684. Our first English literary journals and 
reviews are rather amplified descriptive catalogues 
of new works, dull and tedious. 

Daniel De Foe has certainly the merit of being 
the father of our general periodical literature. 
De Foe was the son of a dissenter resident in 
London. He received his education at a dissenting 
academy at Xewington, and was early a diligent 



208 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

student of his own language rather than of foreign 
tongues. He was intended for the ministry, but 
determined ultimately on trade as his pursuit. 
He was successively a hosier, a tile-maker, and a 
woollen-merchant, but succeeded in none of these 
occupations. His first literary work was a satire 
called the " True-born Englishman," beginning 
with the often quoted lines, — 

" Wherever God erects a house of prayer, 
The devil always builds a chapel there ; 
And 'twill be found upon examination, 
The latter has the largest congregation." 

He was much in favour with King William ; 
but on the accession of Queen Anne a political 
pamphlet brought him under condemnation, and 
he was confined in Newgate. During that im- 
prisonment he planned his "Beview," which he in- 
tended should contain a synopsis of the current 
events, and original articles on literature and 
morals. De Foe particularly desired to benefit 
his countrywomen by this publication, to excite 
an appetite for reading among them. He con- 
tinued it with very little encouragement twice a 
week during his two years' residence at New- 
gate, and for some time after, and was at length 
compelled to give it up. Probably his reputa- 
tion as a political partizan may have injured his 
" Review." 



ADDISON. 209 

Daniel De Foe was thirty-eight when his first 
work appeared ; he died aged sixty-nine, having 
written tico hundred and ten books and pamphlets. 
His " Review/' though unsuccessful, has the merit 
of suggesting the " Tatler" and the " Spectator :" 
works with more polish but not more earnestness 
than his own. The pure manly English style 
of De Foe, at a time w T hen French fashions of 
prettiness and artificiality, and many learned af- 
fectations prevailed, merits high praise, and may 
be referred to the fact he has commemorated, 
of the careful study of his own language in his 
youth. In narration he has rarely been equalled 
for a life-like reality, and a continued interest : 
witness his " History of the Great Plague," his 
" Memoirs of a Cavalier, 5 ' and above ail his "Robin- 
son Crusoe." In his zeal probably to promote the 
interests of virtue, in some of his works he depicted 
vice, and chose the humbler grades of society as his 
subject; but the lesson, if such it is intended, is 
too coarse and revolting to be any thing else than 
disgusting, and posterity has very naturally and 
properly consigned these latter works to oblivion. 

With Addison's " Spectator," a new era may be 
said to have commenced. The short essay became 
instantly a favourite. People who would in that 
age have been frightened at a book, were allured 
by a little paper ; and when in such small compass 
so much wit and wisdom was found, it is not won- 

p 



210 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITEKATURE, 

derful that they read with avidity, and that the 
taste once excited has gone on increasing even 
to the present time. We are apt now to forget 
the fragmentary and disjointed character of the 
" Spectator " when it first appeared : we have it in 
volumes, and the time when it was delivered at 
the house-door in a few leaves is forgotten. Ad- 
dison's prose has been thought to have given 
to the English language a beauty it never pos- 
sessed before: its smoothness, polish, agreeable 
pleasantry, happy turns of expression, were long 
commended as the highest perfection of grace 
and elegance. In the present day, however, the 
style of the older writers is often preferred for 
its greater earnestness and vigour; the very 
qualities, probably, which the public of the age 
of Addison and Steele was not sufficiently edu- 
cated and thoughtful to appreciate. Dr. Johnson, 
in his Life of Addison*, thus remarks on the 
state of English society when the " Spectator" was 
first issued : — " That general knowledge which 
now circulates in common talk, was then rarely 
to be found. Men not professing learning were 
not ashamed of ignorance ; and in the female 
world, any acquaintance with books was dis- 
tinguished only to be censured. Politics formed 
almost the sole topic of conversation among the 
gentlemen, and scandal among the ladies ; swear- 
* Johnson's Lives of the Poets. 



ADDISON. 211 

ing and indecency were fashionable vices ; gaming 
and drunkenness abounded ; and the practice of 
duelling was carried to a most irrational excess. 
In the theatre, as well as in society^ the corrup- 
tion of Charles the Second's reion continued to 
prevail. And men of the highest rank were the 
habitual encouragers of the coarse amusements 
of bull-baiting, bear-baiting, and prize-fighting." 

Addison and Steele state in the " Spectator/' the 
objects they had in view. " I shall endeavour 
to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit 
w r ith morality ; that my readers may, if possible. 
both ways find their account in the speculation of 
the day. And to the end that their virtue and 
discretion may not be short, transient, inter- 
mittent starts of thought, I have resolved to 
refresh their memories from day to day, till I 
have recovered them out of that desperate state of 
vice and folly into which the age is fallen. The 
mind that lies fallow but a single day, sprouts 
up in follies that are only to be killed by a con- 
stant and assiduous culture. It was said of 
Socrates that he brought philosophy down from 
heaven to inhabit among men; I shall be am- 
bitious to have it said of me, that I have brought 
philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and 
colleges, to dwell in clubs, and assemblies, at tea- 
tables, and coffee-houses." 

It will be seen that this distinguished man 
p 2 



212 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

aimed rather at an outward than an inward im- 
provement of his age. The evil lay deep in the 
polluted human heart, given over to work all ini- 
quity with greediness. This heart was left un- 
touched by such remedies as Addison prescribed. 
Religion, not mere literature, is the real regene- 
rator of the human race. Nevertheless there is cer- 
tainly great merit due to one who brought about 
an external reformation as to manners and taste, 
w r hich would in many cases doubtless be auxiliary 
to the introduction of loftier and more abiding 
principles. The man who drains a morass, and 
makes it ready for cultivation, is equally a worker 
with him who tills and plants, and finally makes 
it a fertile field. 

Probably all literary biography does not present 
so remarkable an instance of a man who loved vir- 
tue, and yet failed to practice it, as Sir Richard 
Steele, the schoolfellow, friend, and coadjutor of 
Addison. His whole life was a struggle between 
his principles and his passions. He was constantly 
striving to conform to his own model of virtue, 
and constantly failed ; because he strove in his own 
strength, without dependence on Him without 
whom nothing is wise, pure, holy, or successful. 
Let those who think an elegant literary taste, 
and an admiration of moral virtues, a sufficient 
shield from the evil of their own hearts, read the 
life of Sir Richard Steele, and be admonished. 



HON. ROBERT BOYLE. 213 



CHAP. XIII. 

MIND AND MATTER.* THEIR STUDENTS AND EXPOSITORS 

HON. ROBERT BOYEE, JOHN RAY, JOHN LOCKE, CATHERINE 
COCKBURNE, AND SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 

Among the immediate successors of Lord Bacon 
who studied on his plan, the most distinguished 
was the Hon. Robert Boyle, born 1627o He 
became acquainted at Oxford with Dr. Wilkins, 
a scientific man, who had married the sister of 
Oliver Cromwell. A company of learned men 
who inquired freely into the causes of natural 
phenomena met at Dr. Wilkins's rooms at Wad- 
ham College. The researches and inquiries of 
these gentlemen were continued until they were 
incorporated in 1662 under the title of The 
Royal Society. Of this society the Hon. 
Robert Boyle was a most distinguished and 
industrious member. He was eminently a Bible 
student, and all his scientific researches served 
but to reveal to him the more clearly the good- 
ness, wisdom, and power of God. He wrote ex- 
tensively on religious subjects, and was solicited 
to adopt the clerical profession, which he declined 
to do, fearing the responsibilities of the pastor's 

P 3 



214 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

office, and conscientiously alleging as a yet stronger 
reason, "Not having felt within himself an in- 
ward motion to it by the Holy Ghost." 

His works occupy six thick quarto volumes. 
Chemistry and pneumatics he particularly studied, 
making many valuable improvements in the air- 
pump, and, by his inquiries, leading the way to 
the further researches of his successors. His 
religious works are peculiarly valuable, as he was 
eminently a Christian philosopher. Truly and 
beautifully does he say, — "It is not by a slight 
survey, but by a diligent and skilful scrutiny of 
the works of God, that a man must be, by a 
rational and affective conviction, engaged, to ac- 
knowledge with the prophet, that the Author of 
Nature is c wonderful in counsel, and excellent in 
working.' " 

Contemporary with this distinguished man, 
and only a year younger, was a man born in a 
very different station of life — John Ray, the 
son of a blacksmith, at Black Notley, in Essex, 
who, however, gave his son a liberal education. 
Ray was the first botanist that England produced ; 
and, with the exception of Linnaeus, the most 
valuable writer on the science, of w^hich he may 
be considered one of the founders. He also was 
a religious man and a sufferer for conscience sake. 
The Act of Uniformity in 1662, which injured so 
many good men, drove Ray out of his fellowship 



RAY. 215 

of Trinity College, and effectually prevented his 
entering into the Church. His most popular work 
is " The Wisdom of God manifested in the Works 
of the Creation" His reason for composing this 
work he thus states : — " Being not permitted to 
serve the Church with my tongue in preaching, I 
know not but it may be my duty to serve it with 
my hand in writing ; and I have made choice of 
this subject as thinking myself best qualified to 
treat it." This work was much admired and ex- 
tensively read. It is now in some measure su- 
perseded by the greater popularity of Paley's 
" Natural Theology." It is, however, due to Ray, 
to state that Paley's work has been termed " an 
imitation of Kay's volume; and he has derived 
from it many of his most striking arguments and 
illustrations."* 

Much as science had advanced since Lord 
Bacon's method of induction from experiment had 
been adopted, still attention had only been directed 
to what the senses presented to the mind, while 
the operations of the mind itself, in the acqui- 
sition of knowledge, had not in England been in- 
vestigated. John Locke was the first who was 
brought to consider this very abstract, and yet 
most useful subject. As all men reason, it is im- 
portant to know by what process they reason, 
and how they arrive at just conclusions. 

* Chambers's Cyclopaedia of Literature, vol. i. p. 524. 
p 4 



216 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, 

This distinguished man was of gentle birth, 
and was liberally educated. He studied medi- 
cine, intending to adopt it as his profession ; but 
ill health, with which he was troubled all his 
life, prevented his engaging in medical practice, 
and compelled him to reside much on the Con- 
tinent. His attention was directed to the study 
of the human mind by what appeared an accident. 
He says to the reader in a prefatory letter of his 
celebrated " Essay on the Human Understand- 
ing : " "I should tell thee that five or six friends 
meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on a 
subject very remote from this*, found themselves 
quickly at a stand from the difficulties that rose 
on every side. After we had awhile puzzled our- 
selves without coming any nearer a resolution of 
those doubts that perplexed us, it came into my 
thoughts that we took a wrong course, and that, 
before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that 
nature, it was necessary to examine our own 
abilities, and see what objects our understandings 
were or were not fitted to deal with. This I pro- 
posed to the company, who all readily assented ; 
and thereupon it was agreed that this should be 
our first inquiry." 

Tins was the origin of a work that was destined 
to open a new department of study — moral and 

* From the subject of the " Essay." 



LOCKE. 217 

mental philosophy; and to suggest trains of thought 
that have been presented in numberless treatises 
from that time to the present. Locke was an 
eminently virtuous and pious man. Sir James 
Mackintosh has said of him : " Educated among 
the English dissenters during the short period of 
their political ascendency, he early imbibed that 
deep piety and ardent spirit of liberty which ac- 
tuated that body of men. And he probably im- 
bibed, also, in their schools, that disposition to 
metaphysical inquiries that has every where ac- 
companied the Calvinistic theology.*'* The same 
distinguished writer acids, — si Few books have 
contributed more to rectify prejudice, to under- 
mine established errors, to diffuse a just mode of 
thinking, to excite a fearless spirit of inquiry, and 
yet to contain it within the boundaries which 
Nature has prescribed to the human understand- 
ing." Besides the " Essay on the Human Un- 
derstanding," he wrote, while residing in Holland, 
"A Letter concerning Toleration" (his first 
work) ; and subsequently " Thoughts concerning 
Education," which diffused far juster views on 
the subject of moral and mental training than 
had previously prevailed, and led the way to the 
more rational system of instruction adopted in 
our own times; "The Reasonableness of Chris- 

* Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxvi. p. 229, 



218 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

tianity;" and an admirable tract, published after 
his death, "On the Conduct of the Understanding." 

Locke's frequent residence on the Continent was 
not always from choice. His opinions on the 
subject of liberty were too free to be tolerated 
by the ruling powers, and he shared the dangers 
and difficulties of his friend and patron the Earl 
of Shaftesbury. He was offered a post after the 
Revolution ; but ill health prevented his accepting 
it. His last days were spent at Gates, in Essex, 
the seat of Sir F. Masham, soothed by the kindly 
sympathy of Lady Masham, to whom he had long 
been attached by the strong ties of mutual esteem. 

Locke's remarks on " Prejudice " are worthy to 
be studied by every conscientious reader. 

" Every one is forward to complain of the prejudices that 
mislead other men or parties, as if he were free and had 
none of his own. This being objected on all sides, it is 
agreed that it is a fault, and a hinderance to knowledge. 
What now is the cure ? no other than this, that every man 
should let alone others' prejudices and examine his own. 
Nobody is convinced of his by the accusation of another ; 
he recriminates by the same rule, and is clear. The only 
way to remove this great cause of ignorance and error out 
of the world, is for every one impartially to examine him- 
self. If others will not deal fairly with their own minds, 
does that make my errors truths, or ought it to make me 
in love with them, and willing to impose on myself? If 
others love cataracts on their eyes, should that hinder me 
from couching of mine as soon as I could ? Every one 
declares against blindness, and yet who almost is not fond 



CATHERINE COCKBUKNE. 219 

of that which dims his sight, and keeps the clear light out 
of his mind, which should lead him into truth and know- 
ledge ? False or doubtful positions, relied upon as un- 
questioned maxims, keep those in the dark from truth, who 
build on them. Such are usually the prejudices imbibed 
from education, party, reverence, fashion, interest, &c. 
This is the mote which every one sees in his brother's eye, 
but never regards the beam in his own. For who is there 
almost that is ever brought fairly to examine his own prin- 
ciples, and see whether they are such as will bear the trial ? 
But yet this should be one of the first things every one 
should set about, and be scrupulous in, who would rightly 
conduct his understanding in the search of truth and know- 
ledge." 

When some of the opinions advanced by Locke 
were controverted, it is a curious fact, that 
among the most energetic of his defenders was 
a young lady of twenty-two, Mrs. Catherine 
Cockburne. She wrote a defence of Locke's 
" Essay on the Human Understanding" against 
the attacks of Dr. Burnet of the Charter-house. 
The work so pleased the philosopher that he com- 
missioned Mr. King * (afterwards Lord Chancellor) 
to present her with some books as a testimony of 
his satisfaction. This lady, who had adopted the 
Roman Catholic faith, was induced by her power- 
ful and inquiring mind to reconsider her grounds 
for adopting it, and the result was her return to 
protestant principles. Her duties as a wife and 
mother, with a very limited fortune, compelled 

* This occurred in 170]. See "Female Worthies." 



220 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

her to lay aside her studies . for twenty years. 
She then resumed them, though in feeble health, 
and wrote several treatises on Moral Duty and 
Obligation, and some controversial philosophical 
works on the writings of Dr. Rutherford and Dr. 
Samuel Clarke. She wrote with force and clear- 
ness on some of the deepest questions that can 
exercise the human mind ; and her exposition of 
her favourite Locke must have had the effect of 
popularising his profound book among unlearned 
and female readers. 

Ten years after the birth of Locke, a feeble 
infant was born at Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire 
(1642), whose mother was a widow, having lost 
her husband just six months after their union. 
This child, born in such melancholy circumstances, 
afterwards became the great Sir Isaac Newton ! 
" The Glory of Human Nature." 

His widowed mother guarded his infant years 
with the tenderest care and the most untiring 
watchfulness, which, indeed, the feebleness of the 
child rendered indispensable ; and though she con- 
tracted another marriage during his childhood, she 
was ever most careful of her son's interests. He 
was addicted to study from his earliest years; 
and when, on being removed from school, he was 
required to manage the affairs of the small estate 
that devolved on his mother and himself, lie was 
found so abstracted, from having his mind occupied 



NEWTON. 221 

with other thoughts, that he was quite incom- 
petent to the task. He therefore entered Trinity 
College, Cambridge, and gave himself entirely up 
to the mathematical and mechanical studies he 
loved so well. Having obtained a professor- 
ship in his university, he turned his attention 
to optics, making discoveries in reference to light 
that entirely changed the aspects of science, and 
led to the most important results. He became ul- 
timately president of the Royal Society. He made 
from reflection on a simple circumstance — the fail 
of an apple from a tree — a discovery of the great 
law of gravitation, "which he showed to affect 
the vast orbs that revolve around the sun not less 
than the smallest objects in our own globe.' 5 This 
theory he explained in his " Principia,'" or The 
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. 
A telescope, which he executed entirely himself, 
is now in the library of the Royal Society of Lon- 
don, and bears the inscription, — 

INVESTED BY SIR ISAAC NEWTON, AND MADE WITH HIS 
OWN HANDS, 1671. 

Great as Newton was as a philosopher, he was 
equally great as a man and a Christian. When 
James II. sought to introduce Popery into the land, 
and wished the university to admit Father Fran- 
cis, " an ignorant monk of the Benedictine order," 
to the rank and privilege of a Master of Arts, 



222 SKETCHES OP ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

no one was more firm in resisting this encroach- 
ment than Sir Isaac Newton ; and when the 
vice-chancellor of the university was summoned 
before the ecclesiastical court, Newton was ap- 
pointed a delegate to defend the privileges of the 
university. He was the parliamentary repre- 
sentative of Cambridge, and discharged his duties 
with wisdom and integrity. 

He wrote much on theological subjects, being 
a humble, sincere believer in the truths of Chris- 
tianity. He was eminently a Bible student, and 
always loved to depict the harmony of science 
with revealed religion. His modesty, peaceful- 
ness, and candour were all the product of the 
genuine piety that lived in his every action. When 
complimented on his discoveries, his reply is well 
known : — 

" I do not know what I appear to the world, but to my- 
self I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea- 
shore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a 
smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst 
the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." 

His tranquil character is shown in the fact, 
that some quibbling philosophers made it a prac- 
tice to contest, controvert, and undervalue his 
discoveries, vexing him with irritating questions 
and other annoyances. This caused him to desire 
to withhold some of his discoveries for a time, 
saying, " To publish a new discovery was as bad 



NEWTON. 223 

as entering on a lawsuit." The readiness with 
which he owned himself in the wrong,, as soon as 
convinced of the fact, is proved in the following 
beautiful letter he wrote to John. Locke. 

" Sir, 
" Being of opinion that you endeavoured to embroil me 
with women, and by other means, I was so much affected 
with it, as when one told me you were sickly, and would 
not live, I answered, ' 'Twere better if you were dead.' I 
desire you to forgive me this uncharitableness, for I am 
now satisfied that what you have done is just, and I beg 
your pardon for my having had hard thoughts of you for 
it, and for representing that you struck at the root of 
morality in a principle you laid down in your book of ideas, 
and designed to pursue in another book ; and that I took 
you for a Hobbist.* I beg your pardon also for saying or 
thinking that there was a design to sell me an office, or to 
embroil me. I am your most humble and unfortunate .ser- 
vant, 

" Is. Xewton." 

To this Locke affectionately replied : — 

"Sir, 
" I have been ever since I first Knew you so entirely 
your friend, and thought you so much mine, that I could 
not have believed what you tell me of yourself had I had it 
from anybody else. And though I cannot but be mightily 
troubled that you should have had so many wrong and un- 
just thoughts of me, yet, next to the return of good offices, 
such as from a sincere good will I have ever done you, I 



* Thomas Hobbes was a celebrated metaphysical and 
infidel writer, born 1588, died 1679, 



224 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

receive your acknowledgment of the contrary as the 
kindest thing you could have done me, since it gives me 
hopes that I have not lost a friend I so valued." * .* * * 

These letters let the reader into the very hearts 
of two of England's worthiest sons. How sensitive 
must Newton's conscience have been to induce 
him to disclose to the person he had injured in 
thought only, what, but for his own frankness, 
would never have been suspected ! How beautiful 
in both was the union of the profoundest intellect 
with fervent piety, and with manners that illus- 
trated the primitive simplicity of the Gospel ! Of 
the value of Newton's discoveries to his age and 
posterity, the appropriate couplet of the poet gives 
the best estimate : 

" Nature, and Nature's laws, lay hid in night : 
God said, 4 Let Newton be/ and all was light." 



pope. 225 



CHAP. XIV. 

ASPECTS OF THE LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY. — ITS LEADING MINDS. 

The distinguishing characteristic of the litera- 
ture of the last century was its diffusiveness, 
as we have attempted to show in our remarks 
on periodical literature. The standard literature 
of the time partook of the graceful manner and 
brilliant sarcasm that the essayists had introduced. 
There was an excess of external smoothness and 
polish, less depth and intrinsic value. 

Following in the path that Dryden had trod, 
and his avowed disciple, Pope became the most 
popular poet of his time, and exerted an influence 
not only over his own age, but over all that have 
followed. He was born in London, 1688. His 
father, a Roman Catholic by religion, and a linen- 
draper by trade, made a fortune, and retired to Bin- 
field, in Windsor Forest. Pope's well known lines, 

" As jet a child, and all unknown to fame, 
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came," 

have made all readers familiar with his remarkable 
precocity. "' The child was" decidedly "the father 
to the man " in Pope's case ; for, after having re- 

Q 



226 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

ceived instruction from the family priest, being sent 
to school at Twyford, he lampooned the master, 
and his parents had to take him home. He was 
then twelve years old, and he continued his own 
education from that time, going neither to school 
or college. He wrote constantly, for his own 
amusement, pastorals, imitations of the old poets, 
and satires, and formed during early youth an 
acquaintance with some of the first writers of 
the day. His first published work was his u Essay 
on Criticism," written when he was only twenty- 
one. This work was commended by Addison in 
his Spectator, and speedily became popular. His 
first poem was occasioned by Lord Petre having 
stolen a lock of hair from Miss Arabella Fermor, 
to whom he was paying his addresses. The theft 
was resented, and a serious misunderstanding en- 
sued. Pope wrote his mock-heroic poem, " The 
Rape of the Lock," in order to make a jest of the 
affair, and, as he said, to "laugh them together 
ao-ain." His ojood-natured intention was not sue- 
cessful, but his poem was considered so elegant a 
piece of pleasantry, that it immediately ranked 
him high among the poets of the time. 

The most beautiful aspect of Pope's private 
character is his tender affection for his parents — 
his mother particularly. 

" Me let the tender office long engage, 
To rock the cradle of declining age ; 



pope. 227 

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, 
Make languor smile and smooth the bed of death : 
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, 
And keep at least one parent from the sky." 

He was, as from his filial piety might be ex- 
pected, a warm and faithful friend. But to oppo- 
nents, or literary contemporaries whom he envied 
or disliked, he was bitter and personal to the last 
degree. He wrote a satire called the Dunciad, un- 
rivalled for power, wit, and malignity, in which 
he ridiculed and lampooned nearly all his con- 
temporaries who were not of his opinions, or among 
his friends. Cowper said, " I have often wondered 
that the same poet who wrote the 'Dunciad' should 
have written these lines : ■ — 

8 That mercy I to others show, 
That mercy show to me.' 

Alas for Pope, if the mercy he showed to others 
was the measure of the mercy he received ! " 

In his verse he adopted chiefly the measure of 
Dryden, who was the particular object of his vene- 
ration, He attained, however, greater terseness, 
correctness, and melody than his master. His 
couplets are faultless in cadence, rhyme, and 
polished diction. In his own time, and for forty 
years after his death in 1744, no one thought 
of questioning his claim to the title of the 
most correct, brilliant, and polished of English 

Q 2 



228 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

poets. Cowper, first, and more recently Bowles, 
Southey, Wordsworth, and others, have doubted 
whether the artificial taste that was manifest 
throughout his works, the sympathy with polished 
life, and the rancour of his sarcasm, were not 
faults that marred his genius as a poet, quite as 
much as they narrowed his feeling as a man. A 
lengthened controversy on this point has arisen, 
Pope's defenders being neither few nor mean. 
Lord Byron vehemently vindicated him, and quite 
recently * the Earl of Carlisle has eloquently ad- 
vanced his claims to rank anions: the mightiest 
poets of the land. 

It cannot with justice be said that Pope never 
depicted natural scenery and objects, for his 
" Windsor Forest " is full of such imagery and cir- 
cumstances. The death of a pheasant has been 
most graphically depicted : — 

" See ! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs, 
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings : 
Short is his joy ; he feels the fiery wound, 
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. 
Ah ! what avail his glossy varying dyes, 
His purple crest and scarlet circled eyes ? 
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold, 
His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold." 

His " Essay on Man," though not approved for its 

* Nov. 1850, Lectures on Pope, delivered at the Leeds 
Mechanics' Institute. 



pope. 229 

philosophy, is read for its poetry, and has supplied 
more rhymed mottos that have come into general 
use than any other poem in the language ; the 
smoothness and point of the verse frequently 
making people indifferent to the abstract truth of 
the sentiment. Thus the often-quoted 

" For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ; 
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right," 

calls the attention from the fact — that the life 
can scarcely be really right unless the faith is so ; 
because we are amenable to a God who sees the 
heart, and knows the motive, and " by whom,"' 
with reference to these, " actions are weighed." 
The same fallacy is found in 

" For forms of government let fools contest ; 
Whatever is best administer' d is best ; " — 

a principle that would annihilate truth, liberty, 
and justice, and make human, and often individual, 
caprice the ruler. 

No one can accuse Pope of want of tenderness 
w T ho reads his elegy to the memory of an un- 
fortunate lady, where in the mournful cadence of 
the verse we seem to hear the falling of the poet's 
tears, and the beating of his indignant heart. 

But nothing in Pope's poetry surpasses his 
" Messiah," and his splendid ode " The Dying 
Christian to his Soul." These are full of hallowed 
q 3 



230 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

fire, and will live as long as the language. Oh ! 
that he had written more of these strains. A 
distinguished critic* has recently remarked, that 
Pope is less understood and admired by the 
people of England, — the masses of the reading 
public, — than Milton and some of the grand old 
poets. This perhaps, true in the general, is com- 
pletely true as regards female readers, who have 
been deterred by his sweeping censures against 
their sex, and his frightful pictures of heartless 
female characters, from reading his works w r ith 
any other emotion than a sort of admiring dislike. 
Yet if Pope condemned with deadly bitterness, 
he knew how to praise with glowing fervour., The 
poet once, travelling from the seat of Lord Bathurst 
to that of Lord Oxford, stopped at Ross in Here- 
fordshire, where Mr. John Kyrle, who lived to the 
age of ninety, and died 1724, had passed a life of 
active benevolence. Pope made this good man 
ever memorable as 

THE MAN OF ROSS. 

" But all our praises, why should lords engross ? 
Rise, honest muse, and sing the Man of Ross ! 
Pleas' d Vaga echoes through her winding bounds, 
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds. 
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow ? 
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow ? 



Mr. De Quincy in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, 



pope. 23 L 

Xot to the skies in useless columns tost, 

Or in proud falls magnificently lost ; 

But clear and artless pouring through the plain 

Health to the sick and solace to the swain. 

Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows ? 

Whose seats the weary traveller repose ? 

Who taught the heaven-directed spire to rise ? 

The Man of Ross, each lisping babe replies. 

Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread, 

The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread : 

He feeds yon almshouse, neat but void of state, 

Where age and want sit smiling at the gate ; 

Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans bless' d, 

The young who labour and the old who rest. 

Is any sick ? the Man of Ross relieves, 

Prescribes, attends, the med'cine makes and gives. 

Is there a variance ? enter but his door, 

Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more ; 

Despairing quacks with curses fled the place, 

And vile attorneys, now a useless race. 

Thrice happy man ! enabled to pursue 

What all so wish, but want the power to do. 

Oh, say what sums that generous hand supply, 

What mines to swell that boundless charity ? 

Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, 

This man possess'd five hundred pounds a year. 

Blush, grandeur, blush ! proud courts, withdraw your 

blaze ! 
Ye little stars, hide your diminished rays." 

The industry of Pope was as remarkable as his 
genius, as his translation of Homer attests. It is 
said he was able to dispatch fifty verses a day ; 
and whatever may be the faults found by scholars 

q 4 



232 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

in the translation, one fact is certain, — that the 
Iliad and the Odyssey were by his means first 
made known to the mass of people of England. 

The faults of Pope were very much the faults 
of his age. Swift and Bolingbroke, his particular 
friends, were keen, brilliant, party writers, skilled to 
make the w T orse appear the better cause, both pos- 
sessing more genius than principle, more wit than 
wisdom. Ridicule and satire were the favourite 
weapons of the time. Nothing was treated se- 
riously, no one was supposed to be in earnest ; so 
that the reader who now turns to the writings of 
the early part of the last century is chilled by their 
heartlessness, even while startled by their bril- 
liancy. Poetry, during the time of Pope, began to 
decline ; a horde of servile imitators arose, whose 
rhymed didactic couplets were both trite and dull. 

Hence it was like a pure stream in a sandy 
desert, when Thomson arose and gave to the world 
his admirable delineation of The Seasons, — full 
of accurate observation of natural phenomena, as 
well as of poetic power, concluding, or rather 
harmoniously rounding, the whole with that mag- 
nificent hymn which is Miltonic in its dignity 
and grace. From the time that Milton had prayed 
that his soul might have the light, denied his 
eyes,— 

" Kather thou, celestial light ! shine inward,"— 



THOMSON. 233 

nothing had been written so noble as an invocation 
for Divine aid as Thomson's — 

" Father of light and life ! thou good supreme ! 
O teach me what is good, teach me thyself; 
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, 
From every low pursuit, and feed my soul 
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure, 
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss ! " 

The intellectual influence of the Scriptures is 
very manifest in Thomson's Poems. The story 
of Lavinia is a modernised, and necessarily weaker, 
paraphrase of the Book of Ruth ; still beautiful, 
though with the hues of English rural life poorly 
substituted for the clear oriental glow and lovely 
simplicity of that sacred pastoral. The 104th 
Psalm seems to have suggested that noble hymn 
which so appropriately concludes " The Seasons." 

Among general readers, the Poet of the 
Seasons has been read chiefly, sometimes only, 
in the great poem that gave him distinction. 
That work, as a calendar of nature throughout 
the year, has an untiring freshness and beauty, as 
varied as it is obvious. To all lovers of poetry his 
" Castle of Indolence " has a thousand charms. 
The Spenserian stanza, which he was the first 
among modern poets to revive, was not imme- 
diately popular. It requires more than any 
measure (blank verse alone excepted) a good 
reader. And good English reading is, even now, 



234 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

not a common accomplishment. Perhaps to this 
cause must be attributed the fact which we have 
been at some pains to verify, that the delicious 
poem in question has scarcely had its full meed of 
popular appreciation. The gentle bard, it is under- 
stood, was fond of ease, and let meditation run into 
reverie, and quietude settle into listlessness. How 
sweet and subtle are the descriptions of the be- 
guiling joys, the insidious encroachments, of the 
" enchanting wizard " Indolence ! and how terrible 
the delineations of the moral ! Rich as our 
descriptive poetry now is, it would be difficult to 
find five consecutive stanzas more full of soothing 
images of rest, of voluptuous dreamy sweetness, 
than the opening lines of the " Castle of Indolence." 

" In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, 
With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round, 
A most enchanting wizard did abide, 
Than whom a fiend more fell is no where found. 
It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground ; 
And there a season atween June and May, 
Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrown'd, 
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, 
No living wight could work, ne cared e'en for play. 

" Was nought around but images of rest, 
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between, 
And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest 
From poppies breath' d, and beds of pleasant green, 
Where never yet was creeping creature seen. 



THOMSON. 235 

Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd, 
And hurled every- where their waters sheen, 
That, as they bicker' d thro' the sunny glade, 
Tho' restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made. 

" Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills, 
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, 
And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills, 
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale ; 
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail, 
Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep, 
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale ; 
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep ; 
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep. 

" Full in the passage of the vale, above, 
A sable, silent, solemn, forest stood, 
Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to move, 
As Idless fancy'd in her dreaming mood ; 
And up the hills, on either side, a wood 
Of blackening pines, by waving to and fro, 
Sent forth a sleepy horror thro' the blood ; 
And where this valley winded out, below, 
The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, 
to flow. 

" A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, 
Of Dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, 
And of gay Castles in the clouds that pass, 
For ever flushing round a summer sky ; 
There eke the soft Delights, that witchingly 
Instil a wanton sweetness thro' the breast, 
And the calm Pleasures, always hover'd nigh ; 
But whate'er smack'd of noyance or unrest 
Was far, far off, expell'd from this delicious nest." 



236 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Imitative and tame as the herd of mere versifiers 
were who copied the manner without having the 
fire of Pope, yet a number of distinguished poets 
arose towards the middle and end of the last 
century ; of whom the best known are Goldsmith, 
Akenside, Gray, and Collins. These have left 
poems familiar and dear to all lovers of just sen- 
timent, charming description, and graceful flowing 
verse. 

" The deserted Village " is, as to outward form 
and structure, as polished as any thing written by 
Pope, while its simple pathos, manly fervour, and 
graphic description find a way at once to the heart 
of every reader. Then, as to " The Traveller," we 
look in vain in the same compass for such de- 
lineation of national character. Belgians, French, 
Swiss, Italians, pass before us ; their strength 
and weakness powerfully depicted by the poet, 
and the causes of that strength and weakness 
laid bare by the philosopher ; the golden light 
of a pure philanthropy irradiating all. That these 
poems are equally dear and familiar to our coun- 
trymen is a fact that consoles us for the many sins 
of society against its poetic teachers. Whatever 
Oliver Goldsmith attempted (and he wrote in 
almost every department of literature), was always 
first rate of its kind; and probably no writer 
of the last century has employed the pens of so 
many biographers in the present, or called up so 



AKENSIDE. 237 

largely the loving appreciation of the reading 
public of our own time. 

Akenside is at present unjustly neglected. His 
" Pleasures of Imagination," though not in itself 
an imaginative poem, abounds in noble passages. 

" Oh ! blest of Heaven, whom not the languid songs 
Of Luxury, the syren ! not the tribes 
Of sordid Wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils 
Of pageant Honour, can seduce to leave 
Those ever-blooming sweets, which from the store 
Of Nature fair Imagination culls 
To charm the enliven'd soul ! What though not all 
Of mortal offspring can attain the heights 
Of envied life ; though only few possess 
Patrician treasures or imperial state ; 
Yet Nature's care, to all her children just, 
With richer treasures and an ampler state, 
Endows at large whatever happy man 
"Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp, 
The rural honours his. Whate'er adorns 
The princely dome, the column and the arch, 
The breathing marbles and the sculp tur'd gold, 
Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim, 
His tuneful breast enjoys. For him, the spring 
Distils her dews, and from the silken gem 
Its lucid leaves unfolds : for him, the hand 
Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch 
With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn. 
Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings ; 
And still new beauties meet his lonely walk, 
And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze 
Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes 
The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain 



238 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

From all the tenants of . the warbling shade 

Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake 

Fresh pleasure, unreprov'd. Nor thence partakes 

Fresh pleasure only : for the attentive mind, 

By this harmonious action on her powers, 

Becomes herself harmonious : wont so oft 

In outward things to meditate the charm 

Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home 

To find a kindred order, to exert 

Within herself this elegance of love, 

This fair inspir'd delight : her temper' d powers 

Refine at length, and every passion wears 

A chaster, milder, more attractive mien. 

But if to ampler prospects, if to gaze 

On Nature's form, where, negligent of all 

These lesser graces, she assumes the post 

Of that eternal majesty that weigh' d 

The world's foundations, if to these the mind 

Exalts her daring eye ; then mightier far 

Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms 

Of servile custom cramp her generous powers ? 

Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth 

Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down 

To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear ? 

Lo ! she appeals to Nature, to the winds 

And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course, 

The elements and seasons : all declare 

For what the eternal Maker has ordain'd 

The powers of man : we feel within ourselves 

His energy divine : he tells the heart, 

He meant, he made ns to behold and love 

What he beholds and loves, the general orb 

Of life and being ; to be great like him, 

Beneficent and active. Thus the men 

Whom Nature's works can charm, with God himself 



COLLINS. 239 

Hold converse ; grow familiar, day by day, 
With his conceptions, act upon his plan ; 
And form to his, the relish of their souls." 

Gray, in his incomparable Elegy and Odes, left 
specimens so rich of the pure ore that he possessed, 
that every reader laments he did not work the 
mine more continuously. To acquire rather than 
to diffuse appears to have been his delight : would 
that in an intellectual sense he had felt the truth, 
"it is more blessed to give than to receive." 

It is certainly very curious that these poets 
seldom wrote as if they either cared or expected 
to find female readers among the public. They 
might occasionally address some particular female 
friend, whom they evidently regarded as a mental 
exception to the sex; and the result is, that a 
certain coldness is felt in their writings. Collins's 
justly celebrated " Ode on the Passions " gives 
breathing, burning, lines to Fear, Anger, Hope, 
Despair; but to Love he gives two lines, — 

" Love frain'd with Mirth, a gay fantastic round ; 
Loose were her tresses, and her zone unbound." 

In truth, it is not surprising that a witty and 
eloquent female writer of the present day should 
have classed these, with Shenstone, Hammond, and 
others, under one phrase, "Poetical Old Bachelors." 
During the most prosaic period of the seven- 
teenth century, 1765 to 1770, an incident oc- 



240 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

curred unparelleled in the history of literature. 
The inhabitants of Bristol had been much in- 
terested by some articles of antique form that ap- 
peared from time to time in their paper relative to 
their city in the olden time, and purporting to be 
written by a monk named " Rowley " of the four- 
teenth century. These extracts excited great at- 
tention. They had been discovered, it was said, 
in the muniment room of St. Mary's Radcliffe 
Church, by a boy — Thomas Chatterton, the post- 
humous child of the late subchanter of that church. 
This boy, a reserved, quiet, dreamy-looking being, 
had been from his earliest years accustomed to roam 
about the church ; and, having, from his infancy, 
little other companionship than the society of his 
widowed mother and elder sister, what wonder if 

" He caught the trick of grief, 
And sigh'd amid his playthings." 

As often as he could, he was rambling about the old 
church. He was totally unlike other boys ; but, 
though considered eccentric, the secret of his genius 
was unsuspected. Indeed, one schoolmaster gave 
up the task of teaching him to read, and the poor 
mother, alarmed at his dulness or waywardness, 
became his teacher, and the child " fell in love," to 
use her words, with an old black-letter book, and 
learned rapidly. He acquired this power suddenly 
at seven years of age, and at eight would have 



CHATTERTOlSr. 241 

spent his whole time reading if allowed to do so« 
After this he was admitted into Colston's Free 
School at Bristol, and had the reputation there 
of being a strange incomprehensible boy. He 
was apprenticed by this school to Mr. John Lam- 
bert, attorney, at Bristol, for seven years. This 
master discovered Chatterton's poetic tastes, and 
felt the utmost contempt for them, tearing up 
any stray pieces, and throwing the fragments at 
him with the words, " There is your stuff! " 

Not long after the strange newspaper articles, 
some poems by the old monk appeared, and the 
learned throughout the land were delighted at 
having recovered a treasure of antiquity so long 
unknown. The antique style and spelling were 
remarkable ; the imagination displayed would have 
been admirable in any age. There were, however, 
some words that students of the English language, 
particularly Gray the poet, and Mason, knew could 
not be so old as the date assigned to the poems ; 
and a strict investigation took place, when it was at 
length discovered that Chatterton himself was the 
author of the papers and poems that had delighted 
and puzzled the literary throughout the land. The 
resentment now felt was as strong as the admira- 
tion had previously been great. People might have 
pardoned the strange deception, but they could not 
pardon their having been thus led into expressing 
unbounded admiration of an obscure boy's poems 5 



242 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

which, if written in his own name, and in mo- 
dern phraseology, they would, not have looked at, 
Alas ! it is an awful thing to tamper with the 
majesty of truth. They were justly incensed ; 
but, while sternly rebuking the deception, they 
forgot to rebuke their own offended pride and 
their vindictive anger. The most bitter of his 
censurers were persons who, without either Chat- 
terton's genius or temptations, had themselves 
perpetrated literary deceptions. Horace Walpole, 
the cold neglecter and deliberate insulter of Chat- 
terton, had written his romance, " The Castle of 
Otranto ; " and in the preface to the first edition 
he deliberately asserts that "it was found in the 
library of an ancient Catholic family in the north 
of England, and was printed at Naples in black 
letter in the year 1529 V' Friendly advice, faithful 
sympathy, kind remonstrance, might have enabled 
the youth to live to atone amply for the strange 
step he took in his early enthusiastic boyhood ; 
when, with none to advise him, neither confidant 
nor counsellor, his brain heated by glowing 
visions of antiquity, and, possessed by a poetical 
delirium, he thought not of abstract right or 
wrong, nor of future consequences. Alas ! the 
latter were very terrible. He left his stern mas- 
ter, came to London hoping to obtain literary 
employment, and, after some weeks of deadly 
struggle with neglect and want, lost his reason, 



CHATTERTON. 243 

and, having none to watch him, died by his own 
hand, at the age of seventeen years and nine 
months. Wordsworth calls him 

" The marvellous boy ! 
The sleepless soul that perish'd in his pride." 

It is recorded of him, that, except in the an- 
tiquarian compositions of his fancy, he was sin- 
gularly and proudly truthful. His word from 
childhood could be relied on. It is evident that 
in the depth of his loneliness and sorrow, and an 
unfriended stranger in London, he had deep 
thoughts of God, and many sweet seasons of re- 
signation. A short time before he lost his reason 
he wrote the following beautiful lines. 



o 



" O God, whose thunder shakes the sky, 
Whose eye this atom globe surveys, 
To Thee, my only rock, I fly, 
Thy mercy in thy justice praise. 

<; The mystic mazes of thy will, 
The shadows of celestial light, 
Are past the power of human skill ; 
But what the Eternal acts is right. 

" Oh, teach me in the trying hour, 

When anguish swells the dewy tear, 
To still my sorrows on thy power, 
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear. 

" If in this bosom aught but Thee, 

Encroaching, sought a boundless sway, 
Omniscience could the danger see, 
And mercy took the cause away. 

R 2 



244 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITEEATUKE. 

" Then why, my soul, dost thou complain ? 
Why drooping seek the dark recess ? 
Shake off the melancholy chain, 
For God created all to bless. 

" But ah ! my breast is human still ; 
The rising sigh, the falling tear, 
My languid vitals' feeble thrill, 
The sickness of my soul declare. 

" But yet with fortitude resign' d, 

I'll thank the inflicter of the blow, 
Forbid the sigh, compose my mind, 
Nor let the gush of misery flow. 

" The gloomy mantle of the night, 
Which on my sinking spirit steals, 
Will vanish at the morning light, 

Which God, my east ! my sun ! reveals." 

Meanwhile, between the time of the death of 
Chatterton, 1770, and the publication of the 
poems of Cowper, 1782, a new and most original 
poet arose — George Crabbe, w r ho has been called 

" Nature's sternest painter and her best." 

If originality mean not only something new, but 
something distinct from every thing else, Crabbe 
may well be regarded as truly original. Neither 
before nor since has there been any poetry like 
his. He has been said to have founded a school : 
but though there have been many students in 
that school, none have practised its rules, or imi- 
tated its master in those distinctive peculiarities 



CKABBE. 245 

that make at once the power and the pain of his 
poetry. He is indeed " The Bard of Truth and 
Nature." But it is rugged truth and unlovely 
nature. Imagination, that to other poets gives 
the wings by which they soar aloft to purer 
regions, gave to him the staff by which he 
steadied his steps in those murky glooms and 
pitfalls of this world that he so minutely ex- 
plored. Human nature in its darkest, meanest, 
dreariest aspects, was his study. And because he 
had the heart of a philanthropist and the brain of 
a poet, and his terrible matter-of-fact characters 
are withal intensely human, his descriptions take 
firm hold of the reader, and we are compelled 
to believe, and tremble, and pity, even while we 
shudder and turn away. 

Crabbe delighted to describe whatever other 
poets would have left undescribed, and regarded 
as utterly incapable of poetic description — an 
unpicturesque town, a flat, dreary sea-coast, a 
barren moorland. His characters are full-length 
pictures of the ugly, the mean, and the vicious, 
rarely relieved by contrast with better natures. 
It really seems imperative to the thoughtful 
reader to inquire how came this kind-hearted, 
pure-minded man to delineate this repulsive 
aspect of human nature. Much of Crabbe's idio- 
syncrasy arose from external circumstances. To 
understand him and his writings, those circum- 

R 3 



246 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

stances must be understood. He was born in 
humble life. His father, a man of strong mind 
and decent education, was the collector of the 
salt dues in Aldborough, or, more properly, Alde- 
burgh. The domestic scenes Crabbe's early youth 
was familiar with, were such as a severe and in- 
temperate father, and a fond, sorrowing, suffering 
mother would present. He was the eldest child 
of six in that poor home. The violence of the 
father and the anguish of the poor mother were 
not without their effect on the sensitive observant 
boy. They aroused, if they did not implant, that 
mingled sternness and pity that blend so strangely 
in his poems. Nature, also, showed him her least 
genial aspect. His native town (wonderfully im- 
proved since his boyhood) lies along a low line of 
coast, without rock or headland to break the mo- 
notony ; while landward, behind the little town, 
bleak sterile plains extend for miles. Trees, un- 
less of some peculiarly hardy kinds, cannot live 
on those sandy moors swept by the fierce east 
winds that so often traverse the German Ocean. 
In Crabbe's boyhood the inhabitants were stern, 
and rude, and unyielding as their district — a 
colony of seafaring people, fishermen and pilots, 
and their families. Strange, that here, amid 
sorrow and violence, and rugged humanity, and 
sterile nature, a great poet should be born, and 
find nurture. 



CRABBK 247 

He inherited much of his mother's gentle 
heroism : and, notwithstanding the father's faults, 
he saw the superiority of his boy, and exerted 
himself to give him a better education than his 
circumstances actually warranted. He learned — 
a rare thing in that place and time — a little Latin 
and mathematics. His youth passed as an ap- 
prentice to a surgeon, first in the country, and 
afterwards at Woodbridge, This town has a 
pleasant country round, and here it was Crabbe's 
good fortune to become acquainted with Mary 
Elmy, who, long years after, became his wife. 
Of course he wrote poetry then, and the praise 
of Mary Elmy stimulated him. She helped him 
too, by judicious counsels, in many subordinate 
matters; his handwriting, mean and bad before, 
took form and clearness from her strictures. 

While an apprentice at Woodbridge, he found, in 
Mr. Punchard of Ipswich, a publisher for his first 
poem. And the readers of his life, who know T the 
domestic sorrows that he endured from his father's 
intemperate habits, will not be surprised that this 
first effort was called "Inebriety" 

" See ! Inebriety ! her wand she waves, 
And lo ! her pale, and lo ! her purple slaves ! 
Sots in embroidery, and sots in crape, 
Of every order, station, rank, and shape : 
The king, who nods upon his rattle throne ; 
The staggering peer, to midnight revel prone ; 
& 4 



248 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The slow-tongued bishop, and the deacon sly, 
The humble pensioner, and gownsman dry ; 
The proud, the mean, the selfish, and the great, 
Swell the dull throng, and stagger into state." 

There are some strong satires of the clergy in 
this poem, which, if Crabbe had been judged and 
punished with half the severity that many young 
poets have since endured, would have effectually 
prevented him from entering the sacred calling, and 
settling down in quiet comfort under his laurels. 

But medicine and surgery Crabbe detested; and 
he had the mortification to return to Aldborough 
without any chance of making his way in the 
pursuit to which some years had been devoted* 
This was the crowning misery of his youth ; for 
his father murmured, and his mother mourned, 
and the thoughtless laughed. At length, after 
some years of unsuccessful toil in his native place, 
at the age of twenty-five, he took his poems to 
London in the hope of finding a patron or a pub- 
lisher, and there suffered agonies of want and sus- 
pense that might have driven a less patient spirit 
to the fate of Chatterton. In the crisis of his 
suffering he wrote to Burke. That great man 5 
busy as he was, found time to read the stranger's 
poems, invited him to his house, introduced him 
to parties that could serve him, and, it might be 
said, completely rescued him from impending 
ruin. 



CRABBE. 249 

The lines that particularly arrested Burke's 
attention, and convinced him that Crabbe was a 
true poet, are the following : — 

" Here wand' ring long, amid these frowning fields, 
I sought the simple life that nature yields ; 
Rapine, and wrong, and fear usurp' d her place, 
And a bold, artful, surly, savage race ; 
Who, only skill' d to take the finny tribe, 
The yearly dinner, and septennial bribe, 
Wait on the shore, and, as the waves run high, 
On the tost vessel bend their eager eye, 
Which to their coast directs its vent'rous way, 
Theirs, or the ocean's, miserable prey. 

As on their neighbouring beach yon swallows stand, 
And wait for favouring winds to leave the land ; 
While still for flight the ready wing is spread : 
So waited I the favouring hour, and fled ; 
Fled from these shores, where guilt and rapine reign, 
And cried, Ah ! hapless they who still remain ; 
Who still remain to hear the ocean roar, 
Whose greedy waves devour the lessening shore * ; 
Till some fierce tide, with more imperious sway, 
Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away; 
When the sad tenant weeps from door to door, 
And begs a poor protection from the poor." 

Apart from the undoubted merit of Crabbe's 
faithful and pungent genius, two circumstances 
certainly favoured him. Chatterton's dreadful 

* The sea, within the memory of man, has so encroached 
on Aldborough as to have entirely altered the structure of 
the town, and devoured one street. 



250 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

death, the indignation Horace Walpole's heart- 
less conduct had excited, in neglecting the 
poor youth, and then insulting him, made the 
sorrows and the claims of genius more impressive. 
This is manifest from the fact, that some per- 
sonal friends of Crabbe, whose hospitality he 
shared, used often in his hearing to speak of 
Chatterton as if giving a deprecating alarmed 
hint of their fear, lest another young poet should 
also perish. Burke, with his warm large heart, was 
very unlikely ever to act as Horace Walpole had 
done, but yet the solemn remembrance of such a 
tragedy must have had its influence. 

The other favourable circumstance was the fact 
that Dr. Johnson, the then arbiter of morals and 
of taste, took a gloomy view of human life. 
Idealising poverty, poetising it, by changing all 
its darker tints, he detested; and his mind was 
instantly struck when Crabbe's " Village " pre- 
sented the poor in stern truthfulness, entirely 
untinged with romance. The vigour and fidelity 
pleased him. His praise was fame. 

Subsequently Crabbe entered the church, be- 
came domestic chaplain to the Duke of Rutland, 
married his early love, the faithful noble girl 
whose kind cheerful letters encouraged him to 
hope in the darkest hour, and with her enjoyed 
many years of uninterrupted domestic retirement 
and happiness. Twenty-two years passed, and 



CRABBE. 251 

no new work came from that vigorous pen ; and 
so quietly did he live, that the public, even while 
reading his poems, fancied him dead. Then, after 
that long interval, he again entered the list, and 
his "Borough," "Tales of the Hall," and other 
poems were hailed with delight by those who 
loved his racy homely truth. Many great poets 
had arisen in the interval, public taste had changed 
and been modified, but still he found that he had 
an admiring and increasing audience, He sur- 
vived the companion of his youth and maturity 
many years, and died at Trowbridge in 1832, at 
the good old age of seventy-seven. 

His bust, erected in the church of his native 
town, represents a countenance in which the brows 
are stern, the forehead and mouth benevolent. It 
is just the face imagination would assign to " the 
Hogarth of Poets." 

There can be no doubt that the influence of 
Pope is to be traced in the measured verse and 
pointed description of Crabbe. He has been called 
"Pope in worsted stockings." It raises our estimate 
of Pope as a poet, to find that not only rhyming 
moralists and servile imitators formed themselves 
on his model, but that great original minds, like 
Crabbe, and still later Byron and Campbell, were 
imbued by his principles of composition, and emu- 
lated the faultless cadence of his verse. 

But a gentler spirit and a more tuneful nature 



252 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

were destined to move the great heart of the 
people in reference to poetry, and to create a 
complete reform of the coldness, brilliancy, and 
mannerisms, that had too long prevailed. 

Truly there needed a reform in poetry. Domestic 
sympathies, familiar scenes, fireside joys, healthy 
hearty love of nature even, were rarely considered 
themes for poetry. In England and Scotland, 
towards the end of the century, there arose two 
bards, William Cowper and Eobert Burns, who 
corrected the false and artificial taste of the age 
by returning to truth and nature. 

Burns, the noble peasant bard, 

" Who walked in glory and in joy, 
Behind his plough upon the mountain side," 

was the very greatest in lyric flow, wild fervour, 
and natural description, of all uneducated poets. 
He wrote from the strong constraint of nature, 
untrammelled with rules of composition or poetic 
models. His "Cotter's Saturday Night" (in the 
Spenserian stanza that his countrymen Thomson 
and Beattie had been the first to revive) is one of 
the most exquisite and yet just pictures of the 
beauty of holiness in the poor man's home that has 
ever been delineated ; his " Twa Dogs," one of the 
very best specimens of keen but good-humoured 
satire on the heartlessness of fashionable life ; 
while his lyrics and odes have been considered to 



COWPEK. 253 

equal, if not surpass, the best in any language. 
The passionate tenderness that welled up in that 
deep heart sprang like a fountain, and overflowed 
in verse. 

A sketch can do no justice to so sad a history 
as pertains to Scotland's most gifted son. It is an 
eternal stigma on the men in power at that time, 
that they both humiliated and neglected Burns. 
The office of an exciseman! was what they be- 
stowed on this sublime genius. He died com- 
paratively young (at thirty-seven) ; but his name 
dw T ells in every kindly memory as intimately as his 
songs dwell on every tuneful tongue ; and the deep 
tragedy of his life w T ill arouse sorrow and indig- 
nation as long as true hearts respond to generous 
emotions. 

Cowper is not only an elegant and great, but 
a truly Christian poet. His poems exercise as 
well as delight the mind ; they demand attentive 
reading, and they repay the student by the fine 
sense, the varied illustration, the close reasoning, 
as much as the play of fancy and the grace of 
expression in which they abound, 

It is remarkable in the history of Cowper that, 
though an elegant scholar and always fond of 
literature, he arrived at middle age before he 
ventured to send forth his poems to the w r orld. 
Except a few papers to a periodical ( The Con- 
noisseur) he did not write for publication; and 



254 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

when his first volume of poems appeared (1782), 
he was fifty-one years of age. Ease, copiousness, 
and diligence were, however, equally with higher 
requisites, his endowments. In 1784 his second 
and most popular volume, containing The Task, 
appeared, and his fame as the greatest moral poet 
of his age was fully established. The exceeding 
beauty of "The Task" has made many readers 
rather neglect the preceding volume : but the fine 
poems on the Christian graces — Faith, Hope, and 
Charity, the sound reasoning and keen sarcasm 
in " The Progress of Error," in " Truth," and 
" Table-Talk," cannot fail to have the very best 
effect on every reader's mind. Occasionally poetry 
enervates by its very sweetness ; it carries the 
mind on smoothly, and lulls it like the soft flow 
of a full and tranquil stream. Cowper's verse 
invigorates, suggests, arouses. He never sacrifices 
sense to sound ; never charms the ear at the ex- 
pense of the judgment. Cowper fully understood 
and fulfilled the poet's mission, that of reforming 
the taste and correcting the follies of his age. 

Though of delicate temperament from child- 
hood, a nervous invalid during his whole life, 
with frequent attacks of deep depression of spirits, 
and haunted by one insane idea, that he — humble 
fervent believer as he was ! was excluded from 
the covenant of grace ; yet he kept his harassing 
gloom, his mournful delusion, out of his poems, 



COWPER. 255 

and gave the loveliest view of the gladdening 
influence of religion, " True piety is cheerful as 
the day," is a sentiment that has often won young 
hearts to " consider their ways and be wise." 

With all his melancholy, what a fine vein of 
genuine innocent wit and mirth occasionally per- 
vaded his mind, and gushed freely forth in his 
verse ! Very difficult in all our literature would 
it be to find such a piece of hearty English 
pleasantry as " John Gilpin ; " mirth so innocelit, 
wit so free from levity — a full, hearty, glad 
laugh, without one discordant note. John, his 
careful wife, their family party, the calendrer, the 
horse, the waiter with his bribe of half-a-crown 
to catch the unwilling horseman, the turnpike- 
men, the commotion along the road, all pass in 
swift panorama before the mind ; while the verse 
is so tripping and easy, that the reader is as 
unable to stop before arriving at the end as 
Gilpin himself was. 

What delicate sarcasm is there in the " Law 
Case" between Xose and Eyes as to the owner- 
ship of the spectacles ! Many lawsuits have been 
to the full as groundless, and the decisions as void 
of practical good sense. 

Among his miscellaneous poems, all excellent, 
none conveys a healthier lesson in beautiful verse 
than this lovely fable 



256 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM. 

" A nightingale, that all day long 
Had cheer'd the village with his song, 
Nor yet at eve his note suspended, 
Nor yet when eventide was ended, 
Began to feel, as well he might, 
The keen demands of appetite ; 
When, looking eagerly around, 
He spied far off upon the ground, 
A something shining in the dark, 
And knew the glow-worm by his spark. 
So, stooping down from hawthorn top, 
He thought to put him in his crop. 
The worm, aware of his intent, 
Harangued him thus right eloquent : 
4 Did you admire my lamp, quoth he, 
As much as I your minstrelsy, 
You would abhor to do me wrong, 
As much as I to spoil your song ; 
For 'twas the self- same power divine 
Taught you to sing, and me to shine ; 
That you with music, I with light, 
Might beautify and cheer the night/ 
The songster heard his short oration, 
And warbling out his approbation, 
Released him, as my story tells, 
And found a supper somewhere else. 
Hence jarring sectaries may learn 
Their real interest to discern ; 
That brother should not war with brother, 
And worry and devour each other : 
But sing and shine by sweet consent, 
Till life's poor transient night is spent ; 



COWPER. 257 

Respecting in each others case, 
The o'ifts of nature and of grace. 
Those Christians best deserve the name, 
Who studiously make peace their aim ; 
Peace, both the duty and the prize 
Of him that creeps and him that flies." 

Among the many poets who in the present day- 
have done themselves honour by tributary verses 
to the memory of the gentle Cowper, none have 
written with a finer perception of the true cause 
of his melancholy (partial insanity ), or a more 
tender reverence for his strange gloom, and loving 
gentleness, than Mrs. Barrett Browning, in her 
stanzas on 

cowper's grave. 

" It is a place where poets crown'd, 

May feel the heart's decaying ; 
It is a place where happy saints 

May weep amid their praying : 
Yet let the grief and humbleness 

As low as silence languish ; 
Earth surely now may give her calm 

To whom she gave her anguish. 

" O poets ! from a maniac's tongue 
Was pour'd the deathless singing ! 
O Christians ! at your cross of hope 

A hopeless hand was clinging ! 
O men ! this man in brotherhood, 

Your many paths beguiling, 
Groan' d inly while he taught you peace, 
And died while you were smiling. 
S 



258 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

u And now, what time ye all may read, 

Through dimming tears, his story — 
How discord on the music fell, 

And darkness on the glory ; 
And how, when, one by one, sweet sounds 

And wandering lights departed, 
He wore no less a loving face, 

Because so broken hearted. 

" He shall be strong to sanctify 

The poet's high vocation, 
And bow the meekest Christian down 

In meeker adoration ; 
Nor ever shall he be in pain, 

By wise or good forsaken ; 
Nam'd softly, as the household name 

Of one whom God hath taken. 

" With sadness that is calm, not gloom, 

I learn to think upon him ; 
With meekness that is gratefulness 

On God, whose heaven hath won him; 
Who suffer' d once the cloud of madness 

Toward His love to blind him ; 
But gently led the blind along 

Where breeze and bird could find him ; 

" And wrought within his shatter' d brain 

Such quick poetic senses, 
As hills have language for, and stars, 

Harmonious influences ! 
The pulse of dew upon the grass, 

His own did calmly number ; 
And silent shadows from the trees 

Fell o'er him like a slumber. 



COWPER. 259 

a The very world, by God's constraint, 

From falsehood's chill removing, 
Its women and its men became, 

Beside him, true and loving ; 
And timid hares were drawn from woods, 

To share his home caresses, 
Uplooking to his human eyes 

With sylvan tendernesses. 

" But while in blindness he remained, 

Unconscious of the guiding, 
And things provided came without 

The sweet sense of providing, 
He testified this solemn truth, 

Though frenzy desolated, — ■ 
Xor man, nor nature satisfy, 

Whom only God created ! 

" Like a sick child, that knoweth not 

His mother while she blesses, 
And droppeth on his burning brow 

The coolness of her kisses ; 
That turns his fever d eyes around, 

4 My mother ! where' s my mother ? ' 
As if such tender words and looks 

Could come from any other ! 

" The fever gone, with leaps of heart, 
He sees her bending o'er him ; 
Her face all pale with watchful love, — 

The unweary love she bore him ! 
Thus woke the poet from the dream 

His life's long fever gave him ; 
Beneath those deep pathetic eyes, 
Which clos'd in death to save him! 
s 2 



260 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" Thus ! oh, not thus ! no type of earth 

Could image that awaking, 
Wherein he scarcely heard the chant 

Of seraphs round him breaking, 
Or felt the new immortal throb 

Of soul from body parted ; 
But felt those eyes alone, and knew 

My Saviour ! not deserted ! 

" Deserted ! who hath dreamt that when 

The cross in darkness rested 
Upon the victim's hidden face, 

No love was manifested ? 
What frantic hands outstretch'd have e'er 

The atoning drops averted ; 
What tears have wash'd them from the soul,- 

That one should be deserted ? 

" Deserted ! God could separate 

From his own essence rather ; 
And Adam's sins have swept between 

The righteous Son and Father. 
Yea ! once Immanuel's orphan'd cry, 

His universe hath shaken ; 
It went up single, echoless, — 

i My God, I am forsaken ! " 

" It went up from the holy's lips, 

Amid his lost creation, 
That of the lost, no son should use, 

Those words of desolation : 
That earth's worst phrenzies' mazy scope 

Should mar not hope's fruition ; 
And I, on Cowper's grave, should see 

His rapture in a vision ! " 



DR. WATTS. 261 

Though the eighteenth century, as regards 
general literature, was, through two-thirds of its 
extent, pervaded by a heartlessness that no bril- 
liancy or wit could compensate, yet it must ever 
be remembered that during the early period of 
that age there were some pure and gifted minds 
that kindled into a bright flame the smouldering 
embers on the altar of truth. Some of the very 
best devotional poetry for general use that had 
appeared (with the exception of George Herbert's) 
w^as the product of that age. Addison had given 
his fine paraphrases of the 19th and of the 23rd 
Psalm ; and many other poets, Sirs. Elizabeth 
Rowe more particularly, directing their minds to 
sacred song, had struck a full key-note. Dr. Watts, 
however, was the first to swell " the grand con- 
summate harmony." He says of himself, with 
the extreme modesty that was a part of his cha- 
racter, "I make no pretences to the name of a 
poet, or a polite writer, in an age wherein so 
many superior souls shine, in their works, through 
the nation." It would be difficult now, if w T e set 
up Dr. Watts as the standard, to find the " supe- 
rior souls " he speaks of. 

Isaac Watts was born during troubled times — 
1674, the year that Milton died. His infant smiles 
had lighted up the gloom of the prison at South- 
ampton, where his father was confined a brief period 
for refusing to conform. An anecdote is told of his 



262 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

mother, when visiting her husband, resting herself 
at the door of the prison, with her infant in her 
arms. The child was unusually precocious, "lisped 
in numbers." His father was engaged in tuition, 
and the son, therefore, had every advantage of good 
instruction and example. He afterwards studied 
under competent teachers in Hampshire and 
London. In his nineteenth year he united with 
the Independent Church, under the pastoral care 
of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, his tutor. On his 
return to Southampton, while devoting himself 
to his studies with increased zeal, his taste was 
offended by the rugged version of Psalms that 
were used in public worship (probably written on 
the model of those that Hopkins and Sternhold had 
given in the reign of Edward VI.) ; and he com- 
posed some hymns, and made some paraphrases, for 
the use of the congregation, adding to them until 
their number was considerable, when his friends 
urged their publication. They were found to be 
greatly superior to any then in use, and that they 
were generally acceptable, is proved from the fact 
that they have formed the basis of all collections 
of psalms and hymns for Christian worship among 
all denominations from that time, and that many 
are completely interwoven and imbedded, as it 
were, with the language of devotion. His sacred 
songs are so well known, that we prefer quoting 
a poem on a different theme. 



DR. WATTS. 263 

FEW HAPPY MATCHES! 

" Say, mighty Love, and teach my song, 
To whom thy sweetest joys belong, 

And who the happy pairs, 
Whose yielding hearts and joining hands 
Find blessings twisted with their bands, 

To soften all their cares. 

" Not the wild herd of nymphs and swains 
That, thoughtless, fly into thy chains, 

As custom leads the way : 
If there be bliss without design, 
Ivies and oaks may grow and twine, 

And be as blest as they. 

•" Nor sordid souls of earthly mould, 
Who, drawn by kindred charms of gold, 

To dull embraces move : 
So two rich mountains of Peru 
May rush to wealthy marriage too, 

And make a world of love. 

u Not the mad tribe that hell inspires 
With wanton flames ; those raging fires 

The purer bliss destroy : 
On iEtna's top let furies wed, 
And sheets of lightning dress the bed, 

T' improve the burning joy. 

" Not the dull pairs whose marble forms 
None of the melting passion warms, 

Can mingle hearts and hands : 
Logs of green wood, that quench the coals, 
Are married just like stoic souls, 
With osiers for their bands. 
s 4 



264 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

u Not minds of melancholy strain 
Still silent, or that still complain, 

Can the dear bondage bless ; 
As well may heavenly concerts spring 
From two old lutes with ne'er a string, 

Or none beside the bass. 

" Nor can the soft enchantments hold 
Two jarring souls of angry mould, 

The rugged and the keen : 
Samson's young foxes might as well 
In bonds of cheerful wedlock dwell, 

With firebrands tied between. 

" Nor let the cruel fetters bind 
A gentle to a savage mind ; 

For love abhors the sight : 
Loose the fierce tiger from the deer, 
For native rage and native fear 

Rise and forbid delight. 

" Two kindred souls alone must meet ; 
'Tis friendship makes the bondage sweet, 

And feeds their mutual loves : 
Bright Yenus, on her rolling throne, 
Is drawn by gentlest birds alone, 
And Cupids yoke the doves." 

Dr. Watts has justly been considered as " the 
most universal scholar of his age/ 5 cultivating 
every kind of learning. It is an interesting fact 
that he condescended to the minds of little children 
in his beautiful " Hymns and Moral Songs/' and 
that, too, at a time when there were no precedents 



DR. WATTS. 265 

for such a kind of writing in our language. He not 
only gave a variety and glow to devotional lyric 
poetry that it had not previously possessed, but 
he it was that led the van of that vast multitude 
of useful writers who devoted their talents to the 
benefit of youth, — seeking less the applause of 
genius than the good of society. 

Previously to the time of Dr. Watts, as far as 
poems suitable to be sung at worship are con- 
cerned, the remark of a distinguished living poet 
is just : " Our good poets have seldom been good 
Christians, and our good Christians have seldom 
been good poets."* But since the time of Watts, 
the names of Young, Doddridge, Toplady, Cowper, 
John and Charles Wesley, and Heber, constitute 
a galaxy of stars. 

Of Young it may be said, though he wrote 
an Essay on Lyric Poetry, that he did not appear 
himself to have excelled in it. His odes are 
diffuse, laboured, and bear no comparison with 
his great work, the u Night Thoughts," of which 
it has been finely said, " They exhibited a very 
wide display of original poetry variegated with 
deep reflections and striking allusions, — a wilder- 
ness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy 
scatters flowers of every hue and colour. Their 
excellence is not exactness, but copiousness ; par- 

* James Montgomery. 



266 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

ticular lines are not to be regarded ; the power is 
in the whole. The charm, however, which ex- 
tends through the whole, is the beautiful and 
consistent piety which shines in every page, and 
constitutes the burden of every song." 

To return, however, to Dr. Watts, justly the 
leading mind among the devotional lyric poets of 
the century. It is his praise to have excelled 
equally in prose compositions. His work " On 
the Improvement of the Mind " is one of the most 
valuable books in our language. His " Logic," 
though greatly superseded by admirable modern 
works, yet, doubtless, led the way to the pro- 
duction of the class of books on that subject now 
so much esteemed. In every thing he under- 
took the originality of his mind was manifest, while 
his life was a beautiful comment on the Gospel. 
He entered on the work of the ministry at the 
age of twenty-four, as assistant to Dr. Chauncy, 
of Mark Lane. He was a tutor in the family 
of Sir John Hartopp, bart., of Stoke Newington. 
From thence he removed to the house of Sir 
Thomas and Lady Abney, and continued with 
them till his death (1748), a period of thirty-six 
years. During his pastorate of fifty years, he was 
frequently the subject of ill health, and long re- 
quired the aid of a co-pastor ; but his labours 
and studies were unremitted. Three years be- 
fore his death, Dr. Watts assisted, by advice and 



DR. DODDRIDGE. 267 

sympathy, to usher into the world a very im- 
portant work, — " The Rise and Progress of Re- 
ligion in the Soul," by Dr. Doddridge. 

Few characters are more interesting and de- 
lightful than that of Philip Doddridge, born 1702. 

The sweet story of his feeble infancy, of his 
mother's teaching him Bible lessons from the 
Dutch tiles round their fireplace, are well known. 
He was destined early to lose, but never to forget, 
that good mother. An orphan in his youth, 
losing both father and mother before his fifteenth 
year, God was with him, and blessed him. 
Friends were raised up. He was placed at school 
at St. Albans, where, in his sixteenth or seven- 
teenth year, he joined the Church under the pas- 
toral care of the learned and excellent Samuel 
Clark, who proved to him a most liberal and 
faithful friend. He received from the Duchess 
of Bedford an offer of patronage if he would 
repair to either university, preparatory to en- 
tering the Church of England. This offer, 
though it excited his utmost gratitude, he could 
not conscientiously comply with. He entered a 
dissenting academy at Kibworth, in Leicestershire, 
the tutor being Dr. Jennings. Here he was 
domesticated with a delightful family, and early 
formed an attachment for the only daughter of 
his tutor ; which, however, ultimately was broken 
off, the young lady afterwards marrying Mr. 



268 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Aikin, and becoming the mother of Mrs. Bar- 
bauld, and her no less celebrated brother, Dr. 
Aikin. It was on Mrs. Jennings, the wife of 
Doddridge's tutor, and the kind friend of the 
orphan student, that Mrs. Barbauld wrote those 
beautiful lines so expressive of the happy death of 
an aged Christian. 

" 'Tis past, dear venerable shade, farewell ! 
Thy blameless life thy peaceful death shall tell ; 
Clear to the last thy setting orb has run, 
Pure, bright and healthy, like a frosty sun : 
And late old age, with hand indulgent, shed 
Its- mildest winter on thy favour'd head. 
For heaven prolonged her life to spread its praise, 
And blest her with a patriarch's length of days. 
The truest praise was hers, — a cheerful heart, 
Prone to enjoy, and ready to impart. 
An Israelite indeed, and free from guile, 
She show'd that piety and age could smile. 
Religion had her heart, her cares, her voice ; 
'Twas her last refuge, as her earliest choice. 
To holy Anna's spirit not more dear, 
The church of Israel, and the house of prayer. 
Her spreading offspring of the fourth degree 
Fill'd her fond arms and clasp'd her trembling knee. 
Matur'd at length for some more perfect scene, 
Her hopes all bright, her prospects all serene ; 
Each part of life sustain'd with equal worth, 
And not a wish left unfulfill'd on earth ; 
Like a tir'd traveller with sleep opprest, 
Within her children's arms she dropp'd to rest." 

The influence of such a woman and her daughter 



DR. DODDRIDGE. 269 

on Doddridge in his youth must have had its effect 
in forming his character. 

This great man recommended religion by his 
habitual cheerfulness. He was an early riser 
from his youth, and used to say by that means 
he had had ten years more of life. He entered 
on the work of the ministry at the age of twenty - 
one, and, after some removals, settled in North- 
ampton, 1729, and was chosen tutor of a dis- 
senting college for preparing young men for the 
ministry, that had been instituted by Dr. Watts, 
Rev. Mr. Saunders, and other nonconformists. 
This institution soon became justly celebrated. 

Dr. Doddridge, both from experience and in- 
clination, was admirably adapted to write for the 
young ; and his addresses " On the Education of 
Children," his " Principles of the Christian Re- 
ligion," and his " Sermons to Young People," 
were eminently useful at a time when books for 
young persons were both scarce and inferior. Dr. 
Watts and Dr. Doddridge have the merit of ori- 
ginating a better class of juvenile literature in 
our land. The great fame, however, of this 
master in Israel rests on his " Family Expositor," 
and his Scripture translations and expositions. 
Of these w^orks, whatever may be the difference 
of opinion on the sentiments, all admire the 
candour and the ability. 

As a letter writer, Doddridge approaches in 



270 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

excellence very nearly to Cowper, — the same 
playful ease and graceful simplicity. What can 
exceed the perfect glow of happiness in the fol- 
lowing letter to his wife, who was absent for the 
benefit of her health : — 

" I hope, my dear, that you will not be offended when 
I tell you that I am, — what I hardly thought it possible with- 
out a miracle that I should have been without you, — very 
easy and happy without you. My days begin, pass, and end 
in pleasure ; and seem short because they are so delightful. 
It may seem strange to say it, but really so it is : I hardly 
feel that I want anything. I often think of you, and pray 
for you, and bless God on your account, and please myself 
with the hope of many comfortable days, and weeks, and 
years with you; yet I am not at all anxious about your 
return, or indeed about anything else. And the reason, — the 
great and sufficient reason — is, that I have more of the pre- 
sence of God with me than I remember ever to have en- 
joyed in any one month of my life. He enables me to live for 
him, and to live with him. When I awake in the morning, 
which is always before it is light, I address myself to Him, 
and converse with Him, speak to Him while I am lighting 
my candle and putting on my clothes ; and have often more 
delight before I come out of my chamber, though it be 
hardly a quarter of an hour after my awaking, than I have 
enjoyed for whole days, or perhaps weeks, of my life. He 
meets me in my study, in secret, in family devotions. It is 
pleasant to read, pleasant to compose, pleasant to converse 
with my friends at home ; pleasant to visit those abroad — 
the poor, the sick ; pleasant to write letters of necessary 
business, by which any good can be done ; pleasant to go 
out and preach the gospel to poor souls, of which some are 
thirsting for it, and others dying without it ; pleasant in 



DR. JOHNSON. 271 

the week day to think how near another Sabbath is ; but oh, 
much, much more pleasant to think how near eternity is, 
and how short the journey through this wilderness, and that 
it is but a step from earth to heaven." 

Two or three years after he wrote this letter 
he published the " Rise and Progress ; " the worthy 
fruit from such a deep root of happiness. 

Dr. Johnson says, that Dr. Doddridge was the 
author of one of the finest epigrams in the lan- 
guage. The motto of his family was Dum vivimus 
vivamus, w T hich he thus paraphrased : — 

11 Live while you live, the epicure would say, 
And seize the pleasures of the present day : 
Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries, 
And give to God each moment as it flies. 
Lord, in my views let both united be, 
I live to pleasure when I live to thee." 

In general literature and criticism no name of 
the last century, or probably of any age, w r as 
superior to that of Dr. Johnson. He classified 
our language by his admirable dictionary, — a work 
that differs from all others of the kind in the 
circumstance that it shows not merely the ety- 
mology of a word, but the sense in which various 
writers have used it. Hence it is a dictionary 
of quotations as well as words. There had been 
good English dictionaries before the time of 
Dr. Johnson, but none that, by examples from 
the greatest writers, gave such a knowledge of the 



272 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

delicacies and niceties of the language. This 
laborious work was necessarily the employment of 
many years. No man was more diligent during 
his whole life than Dr. Johnson. The inde- 
pendence of his spirit was equalled by his in- 
dustry. His noble letter to Lord Chesterfield, 
who had professed to be interested in his great 
work, the dictionary, and whose interest eva- 
porated in mere profession, is a fine comment on 
the aid that rank too often gave to genius, and 
justifies our former remarks on the humiliations 
attendant on the old system of patronage.* 

" Seven years, my lord, have now past since I waited in 
your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door, 
during which time I have been pushing on my work through 
difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have 
brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one 
act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile 

of favour Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks 

with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, 
and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help ? 
The notice which you have been pleased to take of my 
labours, had it been early, had been kind ; but it has been 
delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it, till I am 
solitary and cannot impart itf, till I am known and do not 
want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to con- 
fess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to 
be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing 

* See page 205. 

| Alluding to the death of his wife, which had occurred 
in the interval. 



HISTORICAL LITERATURE. 273 

that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do 
for myself." 

Dr. Johnson's " Rambler" was at the end of the 
last century what the " Spectator" had been at the 
beginning ; it had, however, neither the cheer- 
fulness nor the versatility of its predecessor. 
Dr. Johnson, as a moralist, was decidedly gloomy ; 
ever presenting the disappointments and mistakes 
rather than the joys and successes of life. All 
his views took a tint from the melancholy of his 
own character, and the deep but honest prejudices 
of his mind. No man ever expressed opinions 
more authoritatively, as if he completely settled 
every question. His life of Milton, in his "Lives 
of the Poets" is a memorable instance of this 
summary method. In the midst of much severity 
of manner, Dr. Johnson had a kind and benevolent 
heart ; and at a time when religion had become 
mere formalism with multitudes, the decidedly 
moral tone of his writings essentially served the 
interests of outward propriety. 

In standard historical literature, the eighteenth 
century was peculiarly rich. The three great his- 
torians, Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, notwith- 
standing very grave faults of opinion, and strong 
prejudices, by their admirable style of narration 
have undoubtedly the merit of rendering a pre- 
viously uninviting study interesting, not merely 
to the scholar, but to the general reader. Hume's 

T 



274 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" England/' Robertson's " Discovery of America," 
and his "Life of Mary Queen of Scots," and 
Gibbon's magnificent work " The Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire/' opened up treasures 
of knowledge, and suggested inquiries that have 
occupied other investigators from that time to the 
present, and at length have completely popularised 
the study of history. 



IMAGINATIVE WRITINGS. 275 



CHAP. XV. 

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (continued). — IMAGINATIVE WRITINGS. 

We have mentioned Daniel De Foe as establish- 
ing a periodical that gave the hint of a similar 
work to Addison and Steele. He was also the 
founder of a class of very influential writings, 
that have been very differently estimated by 
various critics. & Robinson Crusoe " is undoubtedly 
the first popular specimen of the modern English 
novel. 

This department of literature is intended to 
combine in prose composition the peculiarities of 
the epic and the dramatic forms ; narrative and 
dialogue elucidating a story, and developing cha- 
racters. This kind of writing was very partially 
known to the ancients ; that is, in the amplified 
form in which we have it ; though the mode of 
teaching a truth through the medium of a fable, 
is as old as the work of education itself. Thus, 
iEsop's Fables taught moral lessons in the guise 
of fanciful stories about animals, &c. ; and tra- 
dition tells of many works of fiction of classic an- 
tiquity which were lost during the dark ages. 

The monkish legends, containing the lives of 



276 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

saints, most of them fabulous, were the novels of 
the early times 5 and were open to the charge of 
complete falsehood, because they were not given 
forth as the work of the imagination, but imposed 
upon the credulity of the people by pretending to 
narrate facts. After the crusades, we had many 
wild and wonderful fictions from the East, less 
liable to the charge of deception, because, from 
their supernatural machinery of enchantment and 
necromancy, they were palpably efforts of the ima- 
gination. The romances of chivalry were equally 
wild and improbable. There was a collection of 
all sorts of fanciful legends and stories, called 
" Gesta Romanorum" that was a great favourite 
with readers for amusement during the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries. In the narratives of 
this book Shakspeare found many of the stories 
on which he constructed his dramas. "King 
Lear and his three Daughters " was a legend in this 
collection. Sir Thomas More's " Utopia " was 
a marvellous work of invention for his age, and a 
model of the philosophic fiction. 

We have shown that the imagination bloomed 
forth in poetry in the Elizabethan age. More than 
a hundred minor poets, besides the great names of 
Spenser, Shakspeare, and Ben Jonson, gave out 
graceful fancies in their varied verse. But there 
was nothing analogous to the modern work of 
fiction. 



FIELDING. 277 

Dunlop, in his "" History of Fiction/' places 
Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress " at the head, and 
names him as the originator, of the new style. But 
that work undoubtedly, judged both by the inten- 
tion of the writer and the effects produced on the 
reader, cannot, without violence to our feelings, 
be classed with ordinary fictions, however ex- 
cellent. It occupies a place alone in literature : in 
which a sanctified imagination has used the ex- 
periences of the Christian life, and wrought them 
up in a form so striking and peculiar, that the 
whole doctrinal and experimental basis of re- 
ligious truth is presented to the reader. Bun- 
yan's book is a scriptural guide to the world to 
come. The highest aim of all other imaginative 
works is to teach some moral lesson as to this 
world, or to treat graphically some historical era 
or incident. 

It is much more rational to consider Daniel De 
Foe, the author of " Robinson Crusoe," as the 
founder of the modern English novel. 

Four writers of this department of literature 
arose during the first half of the last century — 
Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, and Sterne. The 
first wrote during his youth, and described with 
fidelity to nature, but with great laxity of moral 
principle, and defiance of all decorum, the man- 
ners of actual life among dissipated young men, 
country squires good and bad, and ladies, some 

T 3 



278 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

pedantic and others illiterate, but none of very 
pure moral principles or much mental power. 
The aim of the writer was to amuse rather than 
amend his reader, and the coarseness of his books 
necessarily restricted them entirely to male 
readers. 

While Fielding has been described as an ob- 
server of the characters of human life, his con- 
temporary, Smollet, was a describer of its various 
eccentricities. With great wit and a racy humour, 
the absence of all delicacy made his writings, 
notwithstanding their great intellectual power, 
revolting to all right-minded persons. 

Sterne (a clergyman) aimed at introducing the 
Pathetic into this class of literature, and made 
more direct and tender appeals to the feelings of 
his readers. His writings are equally open to 
the charge of immorality and coarseness, mixed 
up with a great deal of sentimentality, that was 
rather likely to render them more dangerous, 
because they thereby interested female readers. 
His well-known and beautiful story of "Le Fevre" 
is the best, because the purest, of his fictions. 
But it is melancholy to think that a clergyman 
should have left such evidence of his incompetency 
for his sacred office, and should have so aided and 
fostered the follies of his age. 

Richardson merits a rather different notice from 
any of his contemporaries, in the art of fiction. 



RICHARDSON. 279 

He was a professed moralist. Born towards the 
close of the previous century (1689), he grew up 
amid female society, read much aloud such works 
as were likely to please his female friends, and 
was, even in boyhood, employed to write their 
letters of sentiment or business,— a significant 
proof of the low state of female education among 
the decent portion of the trading class at that 
time. He was reared a printer, and cultivated 
his epistolary abilities, without, however, pub- 
lishing anything until he was nearly fifty years 
of age. He then wrote three voluminous novels # : 
two representing the trials and temptations of 
woman in humble and in elevated life, and the 
triumph of purity, modesty, and intelligence, over 
coarseness, levity, and artifice. The third was 
an attempt to delineate a perfect gentleman, in 
the best sense of the word ; but a sort of tedious 
stiffness rendered this work far less interesting 
and popular than the two first. Many of the 
letters in these works were perfect models of easy, 
elegant composition, and unexceptionable as to 
moral excellence. 

Richardson's w T orks were such an improvement 
in moral purpose on those novels that had pre- 
viously appeared, that they were immediately ap- 
proved. Grave and learned men, and eminent 

* "Pamela," "Clarissa Harlowe," " Sir Charles Grandi- 
son." 

T 4 



280 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

divines, wrote letters of thanks to Richardson, for 
having made amusement the vehicle of instruction, 
and purified a class of literature that had such at- 
tractions for young readers. 

Modern opinion has somewhat altered that 
verdict. A German critic calls Richardson's 
writings " moralising immoral novels." * And Dr. 
Watts, in a letter to Richardson, who had wished 
his opinion, said, the ladies of his circle " could 
not read the books without blushing often at their 
contents." In order to describe the triumphs of 
virtue, Richardson too often dwelt on the details 
of vice, until the whole structure of his stories 
was offensive to good taste and purity. 

Nothing is more amusing, as a picture of society 
in the last century, than the letters addressed by 
ladies to Richardson. They adored him as a 
champion, and worshipped him as an idol. 

Without any pretension of instructing society, 
Goldsmith wrote a story that, in popularity, has 
survived and surpassed all the others, and is read 
by every succeeding generation with constant 
delight—" The Vicar of Wakefield." Except "Ro- 
binson Crusoe," no book of that class has secured 
so extensive a reputation, not only in our own, 
but in foreign lands. It was undoubtedly the 
first of that large class, — healthly domestic stories. 

* Schlosser's History of the Literature of the Eighteenth 
Century, vol. ii. p. 60. 



GOLDSMITH. 281 

It has been translated into every European lan- 
guage ; and it has also been eminently suggestive 
of subjects for painters. There is a picture of some 
scene in the " Vicar of Wakefield" in almost every 
exhibition of paintings ; while its beauty, simpli- 
city,, and truth to nature, have rendered it incom- 
parable as a delightful domestic story. Whatever 
department of literature Goldsmith touched he 
embellished by the pure graces of his natural, un- 
affected style. His poetry has the polish of Pope 
without his artificiality ; his prose the elegance of 
Addison with more force and genuineness. No 
writer of the past century has been so interesting 
to the people of the present, both in England and 
America. The biography of Goldsmith has been 
thrice written in a comprehensive and attractive 
form within these few years*; and amid the com- 
petitions of the essayists, poets, novelists, and 
dramatists of the present age, his works retain 
their place in public favour to an extent that no 
author in the departments of general literature 
can boast. Much of this is due to his undoubted 
genius, his great but unpretending knowledge, 
and yet more to his guileless spirit and kindly 
nature, which gleams out in all his writings like a 
clear flame through a crystal lamp. It is very 
probable that the prison teachings of the good 

* Prior's, Washington Irving's, and Forster's Lives of 
Goldsmith. 



282 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

vicar may have suggested thoughts to men in 
power that have aided in the work of prison 
reform. 

The question very naturally and properly arises 
as to the utility of works of fiction. 

Two classes err with reference to them — those 
who reject them entirely, and those who read them 
exclusively and indiscriminately. The first com- 
prehends a large section both of the religious and 
the scientific world. The former, from a sacred re- 
verence for truth, and a conscientious jealousy 
lest its sanctity should be weakened, dislike all 
that is not fact ; apparently forgetting that truth 
soars into a higher region than mere fact, and 
that a matter may be true hypothetically and 
metaphysically that is not true literally. Teach- 
ing by similitude makes a matter more plain to 
many minds ; and putting a supposititious case to 
elucidate or prove an argument, is the ordinary 
course whenever we would embody abstract truths 
and present examples. In this way, the imagina- 
tion may be made more serviceable than any 
faculty we possess, in influencing the moral sen- 
timents. The scientific objectors to imaginative 
literature hold that, as life is short, and the world 
full even yet of unexplored mysteries and wonders, 
the real and the actual, rather than the ideal 
and fanciful, should occupy the attention. It is, 
however, a memorable fact, that the imagination 



WORKS OF FICTION. 283 

has been the great auxiliary to science ; that the 
mere plodder, however useful in heaping up and 
arranging a store of facts, has not been the man 
that has invented and extended the boundaries of 
knowledge. Columbus, Galileo, Kepler, were all 
highly imaginative minds ; and in modern times, 
James Watt and Sir Humphry Davy were dis- 
tinguished for the possession of a vivid imagina- 
tion, that led them into speculations by which 
they often arrived unexpectedly at truth. 

The second class is undoubtedly much larger 
than the first, and their error more fatal. No 
department of literature (if we except that which is 
of divine authority) can be read continuously and 
indiscriminately without injury, more or less, to 
the mind — by the cultivation of one faculty with- 
out reference to others. A constant reading of 
history, without regard to the lessons to be gained 
from the narrative, and to the peculiarities and 
prejudices of each historian, would end in filling 
the mind with a contradictory jumble of facts that 
taught falsehoods more effectually than any fiction. 
A constant reading of poetry would tend to 
enervate the mind, and make it more dependent 
on harmonious sounds than abstract truths. Bio- 
graphy, though the most useful, fascinating, and 
generally applicable of any kind of reading, may, 
by being perpetually indulged, stimulate rather 
than strengthen, and lead the reader to depend 



284 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

on the mere narrative, and not to investigate and 
apply the lesson of the life. Even moral essays 
and controversies, perpetually and exclusively 
perused, would but create a dogmatic spirit, and 
perhaps fatigue and perplex the mind, until it 
wandered " in endless mazes lost ; " while every 
one knows that a constant habit of discursive 
reading of periodicals tends to confusion and su- 
perficiality. But there is much less temptation 
to exclusiveness and voracity in reading any other 
department of literature, and far less danger to 
the mind, than from continuous application to 
works of fiction. In the present day this depart- 
ment of literature has so improved in purpose and 
in execution, that the arguments once used by 
thoughtful minds will no longer apply. The 
objection that yet remains in full force against 
young persons, more especially, reading such 
works indiscriminately, is, that they indispose, and 
in some cases incapacitate, the mind from regular 
study and attention to standard literature. The 
fascination of a narrative and the stimulus of a 
catastrophe are necessary to attract and fix the 
attention ; and any work that has not that pecu- 
liarity is not likely to prove interesting. Dryness 
and tediousness are the defects alleged against 
works of sterling merit by the class of readers 
who have over-excited their minds by brilliant 
description and gorgeous story. Another great 



WORKS OF FICTION. 285 

and grave defect is, that these works create an 
appetite they cannot satisfy. A morbid craving 
is excited, that consumes time and weakens in- 
tellect in its gratification. To read much and know 
nothing clearly — to have read whole libraries, 
and have nothing to rely on as correct, or to quote 
as fact, is the ordinary condition of the voracious, 
indiscriminate novel reader. 

To read a well-written work of fiction, of a 
strictly moral and healthy tendency, to exhilarate 
and refresh the mind, to elucidate a point of 
ethics, or a theory of society, or to get a graphic 
panoramic view of the manners of past times, is a 
just and reasonable use of works of imagination. 

In the present day we have historical, meta- 
physical, philosophical, conventional, ethical, na- 
tional, humorous, and domestic fictions, contributed 
by writers male and female of the very highest 
reputation. 

In the admirable essay with which Mrs. Bar- 
bauld prefaces " The Correspondence of Richard- 
son " which she edited, she says, very justly, — 

" It is not easy to say why the poet should have so high a 
place allotted him in the Temple of Fame, and the romance 
writer so low a one as, in the general estimation, he is con- 
fined to ; for his dignity as a writer has by no means been 
measured by the pleasure he affords to his readers ; yet the 
invention of a story, the choice of proper incidents, the 
ordonnance of the plan, the exhibition of the character, the 
gradual development of a plot, occasional beauties of de- 



286 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

scription, and, above all, the power exercised over the 
reader's heart, by filling it with the successive emotions of 
love, pity, joy, anguish, transport, or indignation, together 
with the grave impressive moral resulting from the whole, 
imply talents of the highest order, and command our warm- 
est praise. There is no walk in which taste and genius 
have more distinguished themselves, or in which virtuous 
and noble sentiments have come out with greater lustre." * 

It is creditable to public taste in the present 
day that the vapid trash, the prosy narrations of 
impossibilities, the delicate distresses and senti- 
mental perplexities, that came out in five or seven 
volumes at the end of the last and beginning of the 
present century, have almost entirely disappeared. 
Female education, registrations, railways, and 
a penny post, have done away with nearly all the 
delectable mysteries of nocturnal elopements in 
post-chaises, forced marriages, foundlings the heirs 
to titles and estates, and wealthy distant uncles, un- 
approachable by roads or letters, who yet always 
arrived at the right time ; in short, the old machi- 
nery of romance is broken up and done with ; and 
something that does not outrage probability and 
that elucidates the real, whether good or evil, is 
energetically demanded and supplied. 

* Correspondence of Richardson, edited by Letitia Bar- 
bauld, vol. i. p. 10. 



LADY MART WORTLEY MONTAGU. 287 



CHAP. XVI. 

FEMALE WRITERS OF THE EAST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY, AND THE BEGINNING OF THE PRESENT. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Kowe, the Philomela of Prior, 
the friend also of Dr. Watts, was unquestionably, 
as far as elegant literature is concerned, the most 
popular female writer at the commencement of the 
eighteenth century; her virtues being fully as 
admirable as her talents, and her life the best com- 
ment on her principles. We have already adverted 
to Mrs. Catherine Cockburne, the disciple and 
defender of Locke. Lady Mary Wortley Mon- 
tagu, the brilliant and versatile, and, alas! the 
capricious and eccentric, was the most celebrated 
woman of her time, though her writings were not 
published until after her death. Yet the praises 
of men of genius ; the poems that now and then 
crept into periodicals, and were known to be hers ; 
her travels in the East, a region previously un- 
visited by an Englishwoman; her wit and vivacity; 
the independence of mind that induced her at all 
hazards of opposition and ridicule to introduce 
inoculation for the small-pox, all combined to 
render her the " observed of all observers." 



288 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

As a friend of men of genius, and a patron of 
literature, Lady Hertford, afterwards Duchess of 
Somerset, deserves honoured remembrance. She 
aided Thomson, and he in return dedicated his 
" Spring" to her in stanzas not only exquisitely 
beautiful, but appropriate to the sweetness and 
liberality of her nature : — 

" Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal mildness, come ! 
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, 
While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower 
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend. 
Oh, Hertford ! fitted or to shine in courts 
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain 
With innocence and meditation joined 
In soft assemblage, listen to my song, 
Which thy own season paints, when nature all 
Is blooming and benevolent like thee." 

To this lady's spirited intercession with Queen 
Caroline, wife of George II. the persecuted poet, 
Savage, owed his life. He had been accused of 
murder ; and his unnatural mother, the Countess 
of Macclesfield*, did all she could to prejudice the 
Queen against him. Lady Hertford, who was ac- 
quainted with the whole particulars, determined 

* Richard Savage was the unacknowledged son of this 
odious woman. He discovered the secret of his birth, and 
endeavoured, but in vain, to awaken some sympathy in her 
callous heart. Her malignity was increased tenfold, and 
she actually prejudiced the queen's mind by falsely accusing 
Savage of having attempted to murder her. 



MRS. MONTAGU. 289 

that the Queen should know the truth. She ob- 
tained an audience, and the life of Savage was 
spared. This lady was also the friend of Dr. 
Watts and Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe. 

The latter half of the century was, however, far 
more prolific in female writers than the former. 
A new kind of literary association sprang up, 
copied, it must be admitted, from the French, 
and now chiefly remembered from the fact of 
its having been the means of introducing some 
women of superior attainments to celebrated men 
of the time, whose praise was fame. 

Mrs. Montagu, a lady of fortune, and a con- 
nection by marriage of Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu, had resided in Paris, and adopted the 
then prevailing fashion of holding literary as- 
semblies. On her return to England she intro- 
duced the plan ; and her house, on stated nights, 
became the resort of distinguished persons of both 
sexes. Here might be seen the titled dame, who 
conferred patronage and expected praise ; the 
young literary aspirant; the men of established 
repute, who loved to unbend among those who 
eagerly listened, lauded, and repeated their say- 
ings ; and the quiet observers of human character, 
who could not but be pleased at the mingled wit 
and wisdom, pretence and folly, that variegated 
the scene. At Mrs. Montagu's, however, literary 
ease, either in dress or manner, was not practised ; 

u 



290 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

there was stately attire and dignified ceremonial : 
the deportment of the highly intellectual hostess 
was full of courtly grace, and influenced the 
others. The word has bleu (blue stocking) was 
applied to these gatherings, though not first at 
Mrs. Montagu's. Mrs. Vesey, a lady of similar 
tastes but far smaller fortune, opened her house 
for literary assemblings every Tuesday evening 
during the London season, and here greater free- 
dom prevailed. According to Madame D'Arblay, 
a foreign gentleman, who was invited, once apolo- 
gised that his dress was unsuitable, when Mrs. 
Vesey replied, " Pho ! don't mind dress ; come in 
your blue stockings." This term was caught up, 
in a sort of mistake, by the foreigner, and came 
to be applied to each house, and perhaps more 
commonlv at length to Mrs. Montagu's, who was 
called " the queen of the blues" Madame D'Ar- 
blay observes, — 

" But while the same bas bleu appellation was 
given to these two houses of rendezvous, neither 
that nor even the same associates could render 
them similar. Their grandeur or their simplicity, 
their magnitude or their diminutiveness, were by 
no means the principal cause of this difference ; 
it was far more attributable to the lady presidents 
than to their abodes. For though they instilled 
not their characters into their visitors, their cha- 
racters bore so large a share in their visitors' 



MRS. MONTAGU. 291 

reception and accommodation, as to influence 
materially the turn of the discourse and the 
humour of the parties at their houses." 

To these two literary gatherings, in process of 
time, a third was added. Mrs. Thrale's house at 
Streatham, in consequence of the celebrity of her 
distinguished guest, Dr. Johnson — who became an 
almost constant inmate — was much frequented; 
and if not so absolute as to fashion and taste, was 
fully as intellectual. 

These three ladies, Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Yesey, 
and Mrs. Thrale, were considered equal as arbiters 
of taste, and friends of genius. The first and 
the last are, however, the best known by their 
writings. 

Mrs. Montagu, who had received all the ad- 
vantages the most liberal education and ample 
fortune could command, wrote " An Essay on 
the Writings and Genius of Shakspeare," against 
the attacks of Voltaire, the French sceptical poet, 
who misunderstood and depreciated our national 
bard. So much has been written — finely and ju- 
diciously written — elucidating and commenting 
on Shakspeare, that in our days Mrs. Montagu's 
defence reads rather tame and laboured. It was, 
however, a good service that she rendered at a 
time when there was a far greater appreciation 
of artificial and superficial writings, than of the 
bard who unveiled the inmost recesses of the heart. 

u 2 



292 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Mrs. Thrale, who had associated so much with 
Dr. Johnson that she might be considered his 
pupil, has left many evidences of her brilliancy 
and vivacity. Her poem " The Three Warnings," 
is. as good a piece of serious pleasantry as any in 
the language ; and her two volumes of " British 
Synonymes," without any pretension to learned 
method and systematic arrangement, supply most 
agreeably interesting, and often sparkling, essays 
on the nature and power of analogous words* 
The book was written to aid foreigners in ob- 
taining a knowledge of the niceties of our lan- 
guage, and has the merit of being one of the 
liveliest books about mere words that we possess. 
Mrs. Thrale was accused — as indeed every learned 
lady of that age was — of pedantry; but while 
her classic knowledge necessarily appears in re- 
ference to such a subject as the powers and limits, 
the conformities and contrasts, of English words, 
nothing can be more unaffected, and even playful, 
than the style. And while abler and more com- 
prehensive works on synonymous words have 
superseded hers, the modern reader who looks 
into her volumes is repaid by the sprightly col- 
loquial flow of the style, and the grace that adorns 
what otherwise would be a dry subject. She is 
chiefly known as a writer by the name of her 
second husband, Piozzi. 

While these ladies had the merit, or good for- 



ELIZABETH CARTER. 293 

tune, to open their houses to the reception of 
literary visitors, particularly of their own sex, 
many who frequented their coterie became far 
more celebrated than themselves. 

The studious and good Elizabeth Carter, the 
translator of Epictetus, sometimes appeared at 
these assemblies. However instructive her writ- 
ings might be, her example as a diligent student 
is far more valuable to her countrywomen. The 
daughter of a country clergyman at Deal, in 
Kent, whose family was numerous and income 
limited, she manifested no other talent in child- 
hood than perseverance. Indeed it was so difficult 
for her to study, that her father dissuaded her 
from attempting anything more than the most 
ordinary routine of education. She was, however, 
resolved to share the liberal studies of her brothers 
and sisters, and she persevered with such success 
that she at length excelled them all, and became 
the most learned woman of her time. Her do- 
mestic qualities were admirable ; in all the re- 
lationships of life she exhibited a happy union of 
Christian principle and affectionate disinterested- 
ness. 

Elizabeth Carter was a great admirer of the 
writings of her own sex. She thought, and at 
that time very truly, they had not justice done 
them. Her biographer, the Rev. Montagu Pen- 
nington, says, " She was much induced to believe 

u 3 



294 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

that women had not their proper station in society, 
and that their mental powers were not rated suf- 
ficiently high. Though she detested the prin- 
ciples displayed in Mrs. Wolstoncroft's ' Rights 
of Woman/ and never wished them to interfere 
with the privileges and occupations of the other 
sex. yet she thought that men exercised too ar- 
bitrary a power over them, and considered them 
as too inferior to themselves. Hence she had a 
decided bias in favour of female writers, and 
always read their works with a mind prepared to 
be pleased, if the principles contained in them 
were good, and the personal characters of the 
authors amiable." Mrs. Elizabeth Carter contri- 
buted several papers to Dr. Johnson's "Rambler" 
Her poems are excellent as didactic poetry, but 
they have little imaginative power, or warmth. 

Mrs. Chapone was, also, to be seen at these 
assemblies. Her book, on " The Improvement of 
the Mind," a series of letters addressed to a be- 
loved niece, still retains its place as a most useful 
aid to young females who are engaged in carrying 
on their own education, and anxious about the 
formation of their character. 

Miss Fanny Burney, afterwards Madame D'Ar- 
blay, who had suddenly stepped into fame by 
writing a novel that sketched with a lively pencil 
the manners of society, was a frequent visitor in 
these literary gatherings, more particularly at 



HANNAH MOBE. 295 

Mrs. Thrale's. It is to her quick observation and 
rapid pen that we are indebted for the best de- 
scription of the female circle that surrounded Dr. 
Johnson.* The fashionable novel, that professes 
to describe the tone of manners in polite society, 
was considered to arise with her; though, of all 
the class, this kind of fiction is generally the least 
instructive and interesting. It seems strange 
how any one can call such tedious descriptions 
of insipid people, and such dull dialogue, full of 
the cant of fashion — light reading. Leaden, 
indeed, must be the biography or the history that 
is heavier than these are generally. Though 
these charges appropriately apply only to Miss 
Burney's imitators. 

Miss Hannah More was unquestionably the 
most remarkable person that these conversaziones 
served to introduce to the leaders in the literary 
world. She visited Mrs. Montagu in her early 
youth, when her powers were in all the bloom of 
novelty and the freshness of enthusiasm. She 
was admired for her genius, and then loved for 
her excellences. Her literary course is well 
known. Poems and imaginative productions 
yielded as years advanced to practical, educational, 
and devotional works. Often an invalid, she 
contrived to do a great deal of work, besides pay- 

* See Madame D'Arblay's Memoirs, edited by her niece. 
d 4 



296 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

ing the penalty of her great popularity in the 
incursions of numerous visitors. . She lived with 
four sisters ; and after a most harmonious inter- 
course with them through life, was destined to 
survive them all, as well as the friends and patrons 
of her youth, dying at the advanced age of eighty- 
three. 

It is a gratifying fact that the class of good books 
for the young, which Dr. "Watts and Dr. Doddridge 
had been instrumental in calling into being, was 
greatly augmented by the writings of the gifted 
women of this time. Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. 
Trimmer were among the most influential ; while 
subsequently Miss Edgeworth in her prose stories, 
and Miss Jane Taylor, aided by her sister, in 
graceful flowing verse, taught lessons of practical 
wisdom that have doubtless influenced many a 
mind and heart throughout the whole of life. 

Miss Edgeworth, however, is not to be entirely 
classed with educational writers. She founded a 
a new and important school of fiction. The un- 
noticed customs that strengthen into habits, the 
errors that harden into vices, the virtues that for 
want of careful pruning, run to waste and become 
noxious, she analysed w T ith the clear, quick per- 
ception of woman, and reasoned on with the 
logical sequence and precision of man. She had 
just enough imagination to construct her narra- 
tives, and no more ; enough to lead, and not to 



MISS EDGE WORTH. 297 

mislead. Vivacity, wit, and feeling, were hers in 
no small proportion ; but a sound judgment, and 
strong, plain, good sense were paramount. We 
look in vain in her writings for any of those fine 
descriptions of natural scenery that so adorn the 
productions of many female imaginative writers. 
"Pictures in prose" were her aversion. Equally 
in vain we look for bursts of poetic enthusiasm. 
But her fine tact and discrimination of character, 
her sprightly dialogue, ready wit, great inform- 
ation, constant moral purpose, justly raised her to 
an eminence that few female writers in the de- 
partment of fiction have since attained, and that 
none had previously reached. 

Prudence and good sense, taught in a novel, 
was then, indeed, a rarity. The grave error of 
such works had been, and perhaps to some extent 
even yet is, to give a contempt for the homlier 
household virtues of economy, self-restraint, sub- 
mission to parental authority, distrust of sudden 
emotions. Miss Edgeworth did good service by 
exemplifying and impersonating morals so charm- 
ingly, that the narrative fixed and delighted the 
attention, and so distinctly, that the lesson con- 
vinced the judgment and amended the character. 

Two classes of critics have uttered objections 
to Miss Edgeworth's literary theory and practice. 
She has written of morals as entirely distinct 
from, or at least having no direct connection with, 



298 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITER ATUEE. 

religion. No mention of the latter as the found- 
ation of all real moral excellence, and the guide 
and corrector of the feelings, occurs in her works. 
Hence it has been assumed that, to a certain 
extent, she ignored the most powerful of all influ- 
ences, and the most authoritative of all motives, 
and substituted a mere worldly prudence. A really 
reverential mind will, however, pause before it 
utters such a censure. Miss Edgeworth might 
have justly thought a work of fiction a very unfit 
medium for conveying the most solemn and im- 
portant of all teaching. Neither might she have 
had any sense of conscientious obligation to weave 
religion into her stories. One mind may, from 
reverential feeling, leave undone what a differently 
disciplined or constituted mind, equally from re- 
verential feeling, feels bound to do, And, while 
there have been some admirable fictions that have 
stimulated pious feelings, and taught ennobling 
religious principles, candour compels the admission 
that in no class of imaginative writing has there 
been more pharisaical assumption, more false 
theology, more enervating sentimentalism, and 
grosser pictures of depravity, than in the^o-called 
religious novel. 

Another class of objectors complain that, by 
keeping one distinct moral lesson constantly in 
view as the purpose of each story, Miss Edge- 
worth restricted her powers, narrowed her limits, 



MISS AUSTIN. 299 

and ran the chance (to which all teachers are ex- 
posed) of wearying her audience. It seems now 
to be conceded that the moralist, when writing 
fiction, had better not obtrude a given moral, but 
make his work so obviously healthy and useful, 
that the reader must derive benefit without feel- 
ing he has been lectured and schooled into ap- 
proval. In defence of Miss Edgeworth's more 
definite plan, it may be alleged that when she 
began to write it was essential to raise the depart- 
ment of literature to which she devoted her talents 
to an acknowledged moral reputation; and that 
could not be so w^ell done by less distinctness of 
purpose and obviousness of design. 

We feel called on to offer these remarks in re- 
ference to Miss Edgeworth, because her name de- 
servedly stands in the very first ranks among the 
reformers of a class of literature that, whether 
approved or not, exerts a very powerful influence 
on the general, and particularly the youthful, 
mind. 

Miss Austin has been considered, by competent 
judges, to have excelled all her contemporaries in 
the skill, delicacy, and distinctness, with which 
she described domestic scenes and characters. 
The quiet beauty of her easy narrative, — the pure, 
unobtrusive, moral, and enlightened reasoning, — 
have won a permanent place for her in public es- 
timation. Her stories are exquisite mosaics, every 



300 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

minute part aiding the general effect. Her influ- 
ence is manifest in many of the admirable produc- 
tions of living female writers ; while it is but just 
to say that we have yet amongst us many who, 
for varied descriptive power, poetic feeling, and 
wholesome purpose, quite equal, and perhaps 
excel, all their predecessors. 

Notwithstanding the associative gatherings of 
literary women during the last century, there were 
some eminent imaginative female writers of the 
time who preferred retirement rather than the 
celebrity of literary gatherings. Mrs. Radcliffe, 
who introduced a new style of highly poetic and 
romantic fiction, rarely went into society. The 
beauties of nature were her great delight, and 
she sought retirement in order to enjoy them. 
Mrs. Radcliffe had been remarkable from child- 
hood for her great mental powers, both of acqui- 
sition and expression. She did not, however, 
think of becoming an authoress until she had, by 
the engagements of her husband, very much leisure 
time on her hands, which she employed in writing 
something she thought would interest her husband 
on his return home late at night. He was as- 
tonished at the quantity and quality of the writing 
she thus executed, and encouraged her to per- 
severe. Her story, when complete, was given to 
the public, and was followed in quick succession 
by others. Even those who do not approve of 



MRS. INCHBALD. 301 

the romantic character of her works*, were con- 
strained to admire their wonderful power of de- 
scription, their poetic diction, and pure moral. 
They delineated not only the improbable, but the 
impossible, yet with such a grace that all readers 
were fascinated. Sir Walter Scott, speaking of 
her writings, says, " The praise may be claimed 
for her of having been the first to introduce into 
prose fictions a beautiful and fanciful tone of 
natural description and impressive narrative which 
had hitherto been exclusively applied to poetry." 
" Mrs. Radcliffe has a title to be considered as the 
first poetess of romantic fiction, that is, if actual 
rhythm shall not be deemed essential to poetry." 
Some idea of the vigour of her imagination may 
be gained from the fact that her descriptions of 
Italian scenery were so true to nature, that every 
one believed they were the result of intimate ac- 
quaintance with the country; which, however, 
she had never visited. A horde of imitators 
afterwards arose, who wrote tales of romance and 
horror that justly brought this style of writing 
into disrepute. 

Mrs. Inchbald was another celebrated imagi- 
native writer, who, during the greater part of her 
life lived much in retirement — a Suffolk farmer's 
daughter, self-taught, lovely, and intelligent. She 

* "Mysteries of Udolpho," " Sicilian Monk," &c. 



302 SKETCHES OP ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

had, in early years, been connected with the stage, 
which was also the profession of her husband. 
Nothing could be less theatrical than her habits 
of life. Constant in study, economical to a degree 
that seemed penurious, diffident in manners, she 
delighted in the quietude of her lonely home. 
She wrote many dramatic works, and was, besides, 
an eminent critic of such productions. Her chief 
work is " The Simple Story," a book that yet 
retains its place among the standard productions 
of its class. This, her best work, she retained by 
her for some years, not meeting with any pub- 
lisher who would purchase it. When at length 
it made its way from the press, it was instantly 
approved ; its pathos surpassed every thing in the 
w T ay of the pathetic that had yet appeared. 

It is a beautiful trait in the character of Mrs. 
Inchbald, that she debarred herself every luxury, 
and laboured at her pen continuously, in order to 
support an invalid sister, to whom she allowed a 
hundred a year for many years. Speaking of her 
own privations (for she was wholly dependent on 
her pen), she says, — "Many a time this winter, 
when I cried with cold, I said to myself, — But, 
thank God! my sister has not to stir from her 
room; she has her fire lighted every morning, all 
her provision bought, and brought to her ready 
cooked. She would be less able to bear what I 
bear ; and how much more should I have to suffer 



MISS SEWARD. 303 

but from this reflection. It almost made me warm 
when I reflected that she suffered no cold ; and 
yet, perhaps, this severe weather affected her also, 
for after only two days of dangerous illness, she 
died. I have now buried my whole family." It 
may be asked, why did they not live together? 
Probably the immediate care of a sick person 
would have entirely interrupted her plans of 
study. Besides, from the invitations she rejected, 
and the boarding-houses she tried for a time and 
left, it is evident that independence was necessary 
to her. She preferred, to use her own words, 
" her attic, her crust of bread, and liberty." 

Miss Seward is remarkable among the literary 
ladies of the period for an extensive correspondence 
with the eminent persons, male and female, of her 
own time. These letters were, after her decease, 
edited by Sir Walter Scott, and appeared in 1811. 
They present, for persons fond of reading collec- 
tions of letters, a copious and somewhat interest- 
ing memorial of the age. Miss Seward's style is 
studied to a degree that mars the power of the 
thought, and the interest of the reader : the heart 
has but little part in her productions of poetry or 
criticism. 

Mrs. Charlotte Smith, whose sonnets Miss 
Seward unhesitatingly condemned, is still read as 
a gentle elegant poet, while Miss Seward's verses 
are nearly, if not quite, forgotten. It is honour- 



304 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

able to Mrs. Smith, that she employed her talents 
less from ostentation than duty. Many terrible 
pecuniary misfortunes harassed her husband for 
several years. Her family was large, and she 
employed her pen to support and educate her 
children. 

A similar motive called into active exercise the 
talents of a very gifted woman, Mrs. Grant of 
Laggan, whose charming " Letters from the 
Mountains " are so full of original and powerful 
thought. The life of this admirable woman was 
a perpetual struggle with difficulty and sorrow. 
Sir Walter Scott says of her, "The character 
and talents of Mrs. Grant of Laggan have long 
rendered her, not only a useful and estimable 
member of societv, but one eminent for the ser- 
vices which she has rendered to the cause of 
religion, morality, knowledge, and taste. Her 
literary works, although composed amidst mis- 
fortune and privation, are written at once with 
simplicity and force, and uniformly bear the 
stamp of a virtuous and courageous mind, re- 
commending to the reader that patience and for- 
titude which the writer herself practised in such 
an eminent degree." 

Some idea of the domestic toils and trials of 
Mrs. Grant may be gathered from the fact that 
she had twelve children, eight of whom survived 
their father, and depended on her for education 



CATHERINE MACAULAY. 305 

and putting forth in the world ; and of those eight, 
though they grew to maturity, only one outlived 
herself. 

During this period, the first important his- 
torical work from the pen of an English female 
writer appeared. Mrs. Catherine Macaulay wrote 
her " History of England." from James I. to 
George I., in eight volumes ; a book abounding 
in research, talent, and originality, but injured 
irreparably by the strong political bias of the 
writer. Her hatred of the Stuarts was so obvious 
in every page, that it invalidated her testimony 
as an historian. In the present day, when many 
of Mrs. Macaulay's opinions have become popular, 
her book would not arouse the animosity which it 
had to encounter at the time of its publication. 
Her work has, however, been partially superseded 
by more comprehensive and less prejudiced books. 

The name of Mrs. Macaulay suggests another 
influential female name whose claims have neither 
been candidly considered nor honestly admitted by 
her own sex — Mary Wolstoncroft (afterwards) 
Godwin. The position this remarkable woman holds 
in reference to her own sex is precisely that which 
some scientific discoverer occupies, who, being 
wrong in his theories, yet directed attention to 
matters which had previously been uninvestigated. 
Mary Wolstoncroft was a daughter of the people. 
She possessed a vigorous, noble, undisciplined mind 

x 



306 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

an affectionate, truthful, enthusiastic disposition, 
entirely un guided by religious principle. Some 
personal sorrows, a tyrannical father, and a 
faithless, worthless lover, led her to brood deeply 
on the social position of women, their sufferings 
and their wrongs. Her opinions, strong and de- 
fiant in themselves, lost nothing of their force 
from her independent, fearless way of stating 
them. Her book, "The Rights of Woman," not- 
withstanding her honest, mistaken philanthropy, 
contains, without question, the severest censures 
that ever woman passed on her sister woman. 
Her very anger was a proof of her love and her 
earnestness. Mary Wolstoncroft's view of female 
education, as it then existed, led her to look for 
and expect evil results : she contended that dis- 
simulation rather than sincerity was the basis of 
female education ; and that the result manifested 
itself in her character. Men looked grave, and 
women were deeply offended at her strictures. Her 
personal sorrows, her defective religious opinions, 
were eagerly and angrily investigated and de- 
nounced ; and when she died, in some respects a 
martyr to her mistaken theories*, the general 
belief w T as she had injured rather than advanced 
the interests of woman. 

The opinions we have quoted of the good Eli- 

* Mrs. Mary Wolstoncroft Godwin, it is said, died in 
consequence of refusing the surgical aid of a male prac- 
titioner, in a maternal crisis. 



MARY WOLSTONCROFT. 307 

zabeth Carter were the general opinions enter- 
tained by the more moderate and conscientious 
among women ; while others, in a spirit not very 
accordant with their Christian profession, de- 
nounced her yet more bitterly. Meanwhile her 
startling theories were not forgotten ; they were 
read to be confuted ; and many were the writers, 
male and female, chiefly the latter, who sought 
to present an antidote to the poison, which, as 
they believed, she had poured forth. 

People may read and talk without thinking, 
but when they write, they must think. Gradually 
amid the mist of prejudice this truth loomed dis- 
tinctly forth, that woman was not all she might 
be, and that society was not as just to her as it 
ought to be. The most cautious and timid saw 
so far, and mildly and intelligently began to devise 
remedies. Woman's duties, privileges, rights and 
wrongs, character and capabilities, were investi- 
gated and set forth with more or less ability, and 
with all honesty of purpose. That good has re- 
sulted, and yet will result, — that some order has 
come out of much confusion, — none can deny who 
look in the present day at what woman is doing 
in our literature. Occasionally, as the number of 
writers on the subject have multiplied, we hear some 
faint, and some loud, murmurs at the monotony of 
the theme; but, when we remember that it concerns 
no less than the half of the human race, man, at 

x 2 



308 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

least, if not able or disposed to do more, may 
afford to listen patiently, and not obstruct with 
ridicule woman's efforts to work out for herself a 
better education and a more intellectual influence. 

One omission is rather palpable even among the 
religious refuters of the theories of Mrs. Wolston- 
croft Godwin. While they have necessarily as- 
serted and admitted the obligations woman owes 
to Christianity, for the spiritual equality to which 
it has elevated her, they have rarely compared 
the conduct of society towards woman with the 
authoritative standard of Scripture, or sought 
from sacred records for confirmation or correction 
of opinions and prejudices with regard to her. 

As female writers appeared in rapid succes- 
sion, it could not be said at the end of the 
century, as Dr. Johnson had recorded of the be- 
ginning, — "that any acquaintance with books 
among women was noticed only to be censured." 

It is but just to remark, that in England the 
literary coteries in which ladies assembled never 
degenerated into political cabals, as in France. 
Here, they were what they pretended to be, — 
places for intellectual intercourse and literary 
conversation. The tone of manners — that out- 
ward manifestation of morals, improved greatly. 
Scandal and malice, the companions of the tea- 
tables, described by the satirists of the early part 
of the century, disappeared before the presence of 



MODERN FEMALE WRITERS. 309 

more enlarged knowledge and intellectual culti- 
vation. More union of feeling among women 
themselves was manifested, and generally a more 
worthy appreciation of each other's talents. 

New and enlightened views as to female edu- t 
cation began to prevail. Miss Elizabeth Hamil- 
ton wrote sensibly on the subject, and in her ad- 
mirable Essays directed attention to the all-per- 
vading selfishness that so insidiously lurks in the 
heart, and deteriorates the motive. A superior 
purity and refinement manifested itself in our 
literature. Female authorship, and yet more, a 
female reading public, may justly claim to have 
helped to bring about this improvement. 

It is not pretended that there were no bad and 
corrupting female writers; but they were so com- 
pletely exceptions, that the rule became admitted, 
and cannot, as a general proposition, be contro- 
verted to the present time — that a pure moral 
purpose influences most female writers. And if 
they do not always effect that purpose, it is from 
error of the judgment, and not of the heart. 

In glancing over these writers, thus rapidly 
named, whose number might be much increased, 
it will be seen that various departments of litera- 
ture were treated, and we have selected the more 
prominent in each. We now have, in most of these 
departments, greater female names than those 
mentioned. Critics, essayists, novelists, poets, 

x 3 



310 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

educational and devotional writers of the female 
sex abounded, and yet abound. If the living have 
excelled their predecessors of the past age, it must 
be remembered it is easier to improve than to 
make a new path. Those who first, it may be 
with faltering steps, explored the way, unheeding 
the ridicule and opposition of the sarcastic and in- 
vidious, made it comparatively safe and easy for 
their successors. 



MUS. TIGHE. 311 



CHAP. XVIII. 

MODERN FEMALE POETS MRS. TIGHE — MRS. HEMANS. — 

MISS LANDON — MRS. JOANNA BAILLIE. 

Towards the end of the last century, and the 
beginning of the present, we had a number of 
female writers who, in the exercise of the highest 
imaginative and descriptive power, excelled all 
their predecessors. The first of these was Mrs. 
Tighe, an Irish lady, the daughter of the Rev. 
William Blachford. Her " Psyche," a fine poem 
in the Spenserian stanza, was the most sustained 
poetic effort that had then been given to the world 
by the female mind. It is a poem to read as a 
whole, rather than to quote in isolated passages. 
A luxurious dreamy sweetness pervades the de- 
scriptions, and gives them a peculiar charm, while 
the easy elegance of the flowing language attests 
the complete power of the poet over her theme. 
This gifted lady lived much in seclusion, suffer- 
ing from ill health, and died at her husband's 
beautiful seat, Woodstock, near Kilkenny, in the 
south of Ireland, at the comparatively early age 
of thirty-seven. The scenery in which the last 
days of the poet were passed is that in which 

x 4 



312 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 

Spenser wandered when he wrote his "Fairy 
Queen." And no region is more calculated by- 
its wild luxuriance to call up visions of beauty 
and delight than the whole of the south-east dis- 
trict of Ireland. Mrs. Tighe excelled also in the 
short poem : the following has a beauty far beyond 
the mere charm of the graceful verse. 

THE LILY. 

"How wither'd, perish'd, seems the form 
Of yon obscure unsightly root ! 
Yet from the blight of wintry storm, 
It hides secure the precious fruit. 

" The careless eye can find no grace, 
No beauty in the scaly folds, 
Nor see within the dark embrace 
What latent loveliness it holds. 

" Yet in that bulb, those sapless scales, 
The lily wraps her silver vest, 
'Till vernal suns and vernal gales 

Shall kiss once more her fragrant breast. 

" Yes, hide beneath the mouldering heap, 
The undelighting slighted thing ; 
There in the cold earth buried deep, 
In silence let it wait the Spring. 

" Oh ! many a stormy night shall close 
In gloom upon the barren earth, 
While still, in undisturb'd repose, 
Uninjur'd lies the future birth. 



MRS. TIGHE. 313 

" And ignorance with sceptic eye, 

Hope's patient smile shall wondering view ; 
Or mock her fond credulity, 
As her soft tears the spot bedew. 

" Sweet smile of hope, delicious tear ! 

The sun, the shower, indeed shall come ; 
The promis'd verdant shoot appear, 
And nature bid her blossoms bloom. 

" And thou, O virgin Queen of Spring ! 
Shalt from thy dark and lowly bed, 
Bursting thy green sheath's silken string, 
Unveil thy charms, and perfume shed ; 

" Unfold thy robes of purest white, 

Unsullied from their darksome grave ; 
And thy soft petals' silvery light 
In the mild breeze unfetter'd wave. 

" So Faith shall seek the lowly dust, 
Where humble sorrow loves to lie, 
And bid her thus her hopes entrust, 
And watch with patient cheerful eye ; 

" And bear the long, cold wintry night ; 
And bear her own degrading doom ; 
And wait till heaven's returning light, 
Eternal Spring ! shall burst the gloom." 

It was to the memory of Mrs. Tighe that Mrs. 
Hemans wrote her " Grave of a Poetess." Some 
years afterwards, Mrs. Hemans visited the scene, 
which previously she had only seen in imagination, 



314 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

and wrote some graceful stanzas that were followed 
by an epitaph of great tenderness and beauty. 

" Farewell, belov'd and mourn' d ! We miss awhile 
Thy tender gentleness of voice and smile, 
And that bless' d gift of heaven to cheer us lent — 
That thrilling touch divinely eloquent, 
Which breath' d the soul of prayer, deep, fervent, high, 
Through thy rich strains of sacred harmony. 
Yet from those very memories there is born 
A soft light pointing to celestial morn : 
Oh! bid it guide us where thy footsteps trod, 
To meet at last 4 the pure in heart ' with God." 

There was considerable similarity in the genius 
of Mrs. Tighe and Mrs. Hemans ; the same afflu- 
ence of imagery, the same susceptibility to the 
beauties of nature, the same tender grace. But 
in deep pathos and elevated Christian spirituality, 
Mrs. Hemans undoubtedly surpassed all her femi- 
nine predecessors. 

The incidents of the life of Mrs. Hemans are 
as well known as her poetry. Born 1793 in 
Liverpool, her father of Irish, her mother of 
Italian and German extraction, removing in her 
seventh year to Grwych in North Wales, the 
lovely intelligent child, surrounded by happy in- 
fluences of natural scenery and human sympathy, 
grew up a creature of light and love. Poetry, 
music, drawing, languages, were not merely the 
studies, but the delights, of her childhood and 



MRS. HEMANS. 315 

youth. Loving retirement, she derived all the 
advantages that seclusion in the bosom of an af- 
fectionate and intelligent family circle could con- 
fer. Once, and once only, she visited the metro- 
polis (in her eleventh year), and, though of course, 
interested, went back to rural quietude more than 
ever prepared to enjoy it. 

An early, and, it is thought, unhappy marriage 
was the sad termination of this joyous youth. 
After a few years she returned to her mother's 
roof. Captain Hemans visited the Continent, 
and for the remaining seventeen years of her life 
did not return. Five sons were their mother's 
care and consolation. Mrs. Hemans had never 
laid aside the studies she loved so well. She 
wrote from her earliest years. Her first pub- 
lished poem dates back to her eighth year. Her 
first effusions were chiefly tributes of affection, 
birthday stanzas, &c. In her fourteenth year she 
wrote a poem "England and Spain," which, for 
command of language, power of versification, and 
historical knowledge, was a remarkable produc- 
tion for a young girl. She then made many 
elegant translations from the Italian and Spanish, 
which were much admired, Many of her youth- 
ful stanzas had a martial glow that surprises those 
who remember the gentle sweetness of her cha- 
racter. But her brothers and her affianced hus- 
band being of the military profession, naturally 



316 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

made her view it through the medium of the af- 
fections. And it should also be remembered that 
the sentiments now entertained in reference to 
war, after our more than thirty years of peace 
with European powers, are very different from 
those that prevailed in the early part of the 
present century. 

It was when experience and sorrow had matured 
the genius of this gifted woman that her finest 
poems were written. That they most of them 
breathe a plaintive strain was not, in her case, an 
affected sentimentality, but the natural result of 
a life of trial operating on a deep and tender heart. 

Her " Records of Woman " is a peculiarly 
valuable section of her voluminous works. No 
writer presented tenderness so chastened from 
the mere impulse of enthusiasm, self-sacrifice for 
the good of others so nobly persevered in, moral 
and spiritual grace so completely elevating the 
whole nature and sanctifying every duty. 

She herself thought her " Forest Sanctuary " 
the most finished of her poems. A careful read- 
ing of its musical Spenserian stanza, and reflection 
on its lovely narrative and exquisite descriptions, 
will confirm her judgment. It is a tale of a pro- 
testant convert, who fled from the persecution of 
his native land (Spain) to America, bearing with 
him his wife and child. The wife, deeply loving 
her husband, but not a convert to his faith, ex- 



MRS. HEMANS. 317 

hausted with previous -anxiety and sorrow, dies 
at sea, and the husband and child reach their 
" Forest Sanctuary " in the New World, where 
the father recounts to the son the story of his 
persecutions, exile, and bereavement. The de- 
scription of an "Auto da.Fe" and of "The 
Burial at Sea " are in her best manner. 

THE AUTO DA FE. 

" Did lie not say, farewell ? Alas, no breath 

Came to mine ear. Hoarse murmurs from the throng 
Told that the mysteries in the face of death 

Had from their eager sight been veil'd too long. 
And we were parted as the surge might part 
Those that would die together, true of heart. 

His hour was come — but in mine anguish strong, 
Like a fierce swimmer through the midnight sea, 
Blindly I rush'd away from that which was to be. 

" Away, away I rush'd ; but swift and high 

The arrowy pillars of the firelight grew, 
'Till the transparent darkness of the sky 

Flush'd to a blood-red mantle in their hue ; 
And, phantom-like, the kindling city seem'd 
To spread, float, wave, as on the wind they stream'd, 

With their wild splendour chasing me ! I knew 
The death-work was begun — I veil'd mine eyes, 
Yet stopp'd in spell-bound fear to catch the victim's cries. 

" What heard I then ? a ringing shriek of pain, 
Such as for ever haunts the tortur'd ear ? 
I heard a sweet and solemn-breathing strain. 
Piercing the flame, untr emulous and clear ! 



318 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The rich triumphal tones ! I knew them well, 
As they came floating with a breezy swell ! 

Man's voice was there — a clarion voice to cheer 
In the mid-battle — ay, to turn the flying ; 
Woman's — that might have sung of heaven beside the 
dying ! 

" It was a fearful, yet a glorious thing, 
• To hear that hymn of martyrdom, and know 
That its glad stream of melody could spring 

Up from th' unsounded gulphs of human woe ! 
Alvar ! Theresa ! what is deep ? what strong ? 
God's breath within the soul ! It fill'd that song 

From your victorious voices ! But the glow 
On the hot air, and lurid skies increased : 
Faint grew the sounds — more faint, — I listen'd, they had 
ceas'd ! " 

THE BURIAL AT SEA. 

" But the true parting came ! I look'd my last 
On the sad beauty of that slumbering face : 

How could I think the lovely spirit pass'd 
Which there had left so tenderly its trace ? 

Yet a dim awfulness was on the brow — 

No ! not like sleep to look upon art thou, 

Death! Death! She lay, a thing for earth's embrace, 

To cover with spring-wreaths. For earth's ? — the wave, 

That gives the bier no flowers, makes moan above her 
grave ! 

" On the mid seas a knell ! for man was there, 

Anguish and love — the mourner with his dead ! 
A long, low-rolling knell — a voice of prayer, 
Dark glassy waters, like a desert spread — 



MRS. HEMANS. 319 

And the pale shining Southern Cross on high, 
Its faint stars fading from a solemn sky, 

Where mighty clouds before the dawn grew red : 
Were these things round me ? Such o'er memory sweep, 
Wildly, when aught brings back that burial of the deep. 

" Then the broad lonely sunrise ! and the plash 
Into the sounding waves ! Around her head 

They parted with a glancing moment's flash, 

Then shut — and all was still. And now thy bed 

Is of their secrets, gentlest Leonor ! 

Once fairest of young brides ! and never more, 
Loved as thou wert, may human tear be shed 

Above thy rest ! no mark the proud seas keep, 

To show where he that wept may pause again to weep. 



" Where the line sounds not, where the wrecks lie low, 
What shall wake thence the dead ? Blest, blest are they 

That earth to earth entrust, for they may know 

And tend the dwelling whence the slumberer's clay 

Shall rise at last ; and bid the young flowers bloom, 

That waft a breath of hope around the tomb; 
And kneel upon the dewy turf to pray ! 

But thou, what cave hath dimly chamber'd thee ? 

Vain dreams ! oh ! art thou not where there is ' no more 
sea?'*" 

Mrs. Hernans, when she composed this noble 
poem, was so overcome with the power and pathos 
of her imagination, that she wrote with tears 
streaming down her cheeks, and her health and 



"& 



* Revelations, xxi. 1. 



320 SKETCHES OP ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

spirits suffered deeply — so real and actual in her 
case was the influence of "the vision and the 
faculty divine." 

To multitudes, however, her short lyrics, or 
her exquisite sonnets, will ever be the favourite 
productions of her muse. These all have a pur- 
pose. They relate a narrative, describe a scene, 
or teach a moral. They are full of exquisite 
musical verse, flowing diction, and delicate refine- 
ment. 

A volume might be filled with the praises that 
the most eminent men of our age have uttered of 
Mrs. Hemans's genius. Professor Wilson, Lord 
Jeffrey, Bishop Heber, Archbishop Whateley, 
and a host of other bright names have recorded 
their admiration of her genius in warmest eulo- 
giums. The correctness of their estimate is 
shown in the fact that in the midst of newer 
claims to poetic fame, her works remain inwrought 
in many a heart, and completely interwoven with 
the poetic literature of the age. 

Contemporary with Mrs. Hemans was the 
brilliant and enthusiastic Letitia Elizabeth Lan- 
don, a creature gifted with a quickness, versa- 
tility, and glowing radiance of mind, that imme- 
diately excited wonder and admiration. Born in 
London, and seldom leaving it, with a desultory 
rather than liberal education, this gifted being 
seemed without much study to have a compre- 



MISS LANDON. 321 

hensive range of knowledge, that aided her ima- 
gination in its flights, and enabled her to pour 
forth with startling rapidity, not merely nume- 
rous short lyrics, but many lengthened poems, 
all, even the most unpruned, replete with genius. 
Beautiful, yet sad, is her estimate of the poet's 
fate. 

" I know not whether Love can fling 
A deeper witchery from his wing 
Than falls, sweet power of song, from thine. 
Yet, ah ! the wreath that binds thy shrine, 
Though seemingly all bloom and light, 
Hides thorn and canker, worm and blight. 
Planet of wayward destinies, 
Thy A'ictims are thy votaries ! 
Alas ! for him whose youthful fire 
Is vow'd and wasted on the lyre, — 
' Alas ! for him who shall essay 
The laurel's long and dreary way ! 
Mocking, with great neglect, will chill 
His spirit's gush, his bosom's thrill ; 
And worst of all that heartless praise 
Echo'd from what another says. 
He dreams a dream of life and light, 

And grasps the rainbow that appears 
Afar, all beautiful and bright, 

And finds it only formed of tears." 

Just as this admired poet had manifested a 
deeper purpose in her writings, and a more health- 
ful moral tone, she became Mrs. Maclean, and 
went with her husband (the Governor of Cape 

Y 



322 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Coast Castle) to Africa, where she died sud- 
dentyj from poison, it is thought accidently taken. 
Her remarkable genius and melancholy fate have 
invested her name with an indelible and tender 
interest. Rarely among women has a more 
powerful and graceful mind been kindled. Her 
aspirations for fame will be tenderly responded to 
by every heart. 

" I am myself but a vile link 
Amid life's weary chain; 
But I have spoken hallow' d words, 
Oh ! do not say in vain ! 

" My first, my last, my only wish, — 
Say, will my charmed chords 
Wake to the morning light of fame, 
And breathe again my words ? 

" Will the young maiden, when her tears 
Alone in moonlight shine — 
Tears for the absent and the loved — 
Murmur some song of mine ? 

" Will the pale youth, with his dim lamp, 
Himself a dying flame, 
From many an antique scroll beside, 
Choose that which bears my name ? 

" Let music make less terrible 
The silence of the dead ; 
I care not, so my spirit last 
Long after life has fled." 

It is due to the northern part of the British 



JOANNA BAILLIE. 323 

dominions to record that even so far back as the 
sixteenth century, Scotland excelled us in short 
lyric and ballad poetry. And at a time when 
poetry of a genuine inartificial kind declined in 
our land, there were true hearts in Scotland who 
wrote not as fashion but feeling prompted. Many 
female writers were among them. Jean Adams, 
a poor woman of the town of Greenock, contem- 
porary with our Richardson, whom she greatly 
admired, wrote that charming domestic lyric, 
" There's nae luck about the house." " Flowers of 
the Forest," the first and second parts, were re- 
spectively written by Jane Elliot and Mrs. Cock- 
burn ; and " Auld Robin Gray " by the Lady 
Ann Lindsay, afterwards Bernard. The merit 
of these various stanzas is their simplicity and 
truth. It is not, therefore, surprising that Scot- 
land, in the latter half of the last century (1762), 
should have produced a female poet of the very 
highest excellence, the late venerable Joanna 
Baillie. 

Nothing could be more quiet and unpretending 
than the life of this admirable woman. In child- 
hood and youth she was more remarkable for 
vivacity than literary talent, and in acquire- 
ment was not equal to her beloved elder sister, 
Agnes, the companion and (alas ! for her) sur- 
vivor of her life. Acuteness of observation, and a 
wonderfully active and vigorous imagination, were 



324 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

her peculiar endowments. A habit of early rising 
enabled her to cultivate her native taste for poetry, 
both in reading and composition, unobserved and 
unsuspected. She entertained the idea of depict- 
ing the passions in reference to their moral phe- 
nomena and effects in a series of dramatic pro- 
ductions. A single passion, as " love," " ambi- 
tion," " hatred," was to be separately the sub- 
ject of a tragedy and of a comedy. The idea 
was original; it had much of the metaphysical 
subtilty for which her countrymen are famed ; 
and the maimer in which it was worked out com- 
manded the approbation of the leading minds of 
the period. Sir Walter Scott's admiration was 
warmly expressed in his introduction to the third 
canto of " Marmion." 

" Twice an hundred years roll'd o'er, 
When she, the bold Enchantress, came 
With fearless hand and heart on flame ! 
From the pale willow snatch' d the treasure, 
And swept it with a kindred measure, 
Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove 
With Montfort's hate and Basil's love, 
Awakening at the inspired strain, 
Deeni'd their own Shakspeare lived again." 

Ebenezer Elliott also says, — 

" Tragic Baillie found, on Avon's side, 
The mantle left by Shakspeare when he died." 

Southey equally shared in this enthusiastic 



JOANNA BAILLIE. 325 

estimate of her genius. These poems, though in 
the dramatic form, are most adapted, as many of 
them probably were intended, for the quiet peru- 
sal of the closet. Mrs. Joanna Baillie was about 
thirty-eight when the first volume of these " Plays 
of the Passions " first appeared. Nine years after, 
two other volumes followed. They were severely 
dealt with by an influential portion of the press *, 
who, while they could not object to the poetry, dis- 
liked the plan of the whole ; and the name of this 
gifted writer must be added to the number of great 
poets of the present day whose first appearance 
was met with severity, rather than greeted with 
approval. This, however, was not only patiently 
borne, because the mind of Mrs. Joanna Baillie 
was too equally balanced to be unduly elated or 
depressed either with praise or blame ; but be- 
cause the opinions of eminent poets in her case 
completely neutralised the censures of critics. 

There are, however, a large class of readers 
who greatly prefer the narrative to the dramatic 
form of composition. And to these her " Metri- 
cal Legends " will ever be the most acceptable 
portion of her works. "William Wallace," 
€€ Christopher Columbus," and " Lady Griseld 
Baillie," are truly noble poems. A clear mascu- 
line vigour of expression united to feminine grace 
and purity, and, with all her deep tragic powers, 

* More particularly the Edinburgh Review. 

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326 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

a healthful hue of cheerfulness, is diffused over 
her narratives. 

Beautifully has she described the duties and 
the privileges of her own sex in the following fine 
lines from the introduction to the "Lady Griseld 
Baillie." 

" But she of gentler nature, softer, dearer, 
Of daily life the active, kindly cheerer ; 
With generous bosom, age or childhood shielding, 
And in the storms of life, though mov'd, unyielding ; 
Strength in her gentleness, hope in her sorrow, 
Whose darkest hours some ray of brightness borrow 
From better days to come, whose meek devotion 
Calms every wayward passion's wild commotion ; 
In want and suff'ring, soothing, useful, sprightly, 
Bearing the press of evil hap so lightly, 
Till evil's self seems its strong hold betraying 
To the sweet witch' ry of such winsome playing ; 
Bold from affection, if by nature fearful, 
With varying brow, sad, tender, anxious, cheerful, — 
This is meet partner for the loftiest mind, 
With crown or helmet graced, — yea, this is womankind.'* 

Equally beautiful is the following : — 

" The heart's affection — secret thing ! 
Is like the cleft rock's ceaseless spring, 
Which free and independent flows 
Of summer rains or winter snows. 
The fox-glove from its side may fall, 

The heath-bloom fade, or moss-flower white, 
But still its streamlet, bright though small, 

Will issue sweetly to the light." 



JOANNA BAILLIE. 327 

Some of Mrs. Joanna Baillie's poems on sacred 
themes are doubly impressive from their entire 
unadorned simplicity. 

ST. LUKE, XVIII. 16. 

" ' Let little children come to me/ 
Our Lord and Saviour said, 
As on a humble, harmless brow 
His gentle hand was laid. 

" The teachable and simple heart 
Fears not to be beguil'd ; 
Who enters Heaven must love and trust, 
E'en as a little child. 

" The mightiest king, the wisest sage, 
Who knows his God aright, 
Himself a helpless infant feels, 
In the Almighty's sight. 

" A nursling at his lesson set, 
Who hopes at last to know, 
Is the most learn'd of Adam's race, 
In this our home below. 

" An urchin with his borrow'd rod, 
Who smites with guided hand, 
Earth's greatest conqueror hath been, 
The lord of many a land. 

" ' Let little children come to me ! ' 
A cheering welcome given 
To all with guileless, humble hearts, 
Who seek the way to heaven." 

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328 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Equally beautiful is the following : — 

"WEEP NOT," LUKE VII. 12. 

" In silent sorrow from the gates of N'ain, 
Bearing their dead, the widow's only son, 
A band of friends went forth ; and with that train 
E'en she, the most bereft, mov'd sadly on. 

" But when the Lord beheld the piteous sight, 
He had compassion on her ; from Him broke 
Soft tenderness of soul, with saving might, 
And ' Weep not ' were the gracious words He spoke. 

" In deep affliction 'tis that voice we hear, 

When pitying, helpless friends keep silence round ; 
Weep not ! there's saving power, there's comfort near, 
That will e'en in the darkest hour be found. 

" It is an hour of darkest, deepest woe, 

When those we love are sever'd from our side ; 
Yet weep not, for we soon and surely go 

Upon their steps, led by the same blest Guide. 

" It is a darken'd hour, when evil fame 
And evil fortune mingle in our lot ; 
Yet weep not, He, who scorn, rebuke, and shame 
Bore for our worthless sakes, deserts us not. 

" It is an hour of darkness, when the soul, 

She knows not why, dreads an impending doom, 
While heaven and earth seem one black, formless scroll, 
But weep not, light will yet break through the gloom. 

" Poor soul ! He who beheld the widow's grief, 

And touch'd the bier, and from death's bands set free 
Her only son, hath for all woes relief, 
And 'Weep not* are the words he speaks to thee." 



JOANNA BAILLIE. 329 

Mrs. Joanna Baillie lived to a very advanced age 
(89) an embodiment of all that was "pure, lovely, 
and of good report." Many as had been the 
female poets of her time, none had surpassed, and 
few equalled, herself; while the originality, the 
calm, deep flow of thought, that pervades her 
writings, will effectually keep them from being 
superseded in the estimation of the reflective 
reader. 

It is a gratifying consideration, that among 
female poetic as well as prose writers, there are 
living names of equal celebrity with those who 
have departed. It is not our purpose to speak 
further of them, than to remark that no age has 
given such undoubted evidence of the high intel- 
lectual attainments of woman as the present, — 
a fact which must be most favourable to the 
interests of education and the progress of society ; 
for of woman it is especially true that none 
liveth or dieth to herself. 



330 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



CHAP. XVIII. 

ILLUSTRIOUS YOUTHFUL POETS. HENRY KIRKE WHITE 

ROBERT POLLOK JOHN KEATS PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

When the thoughtful mind reverts to the dis- 
appointments and sorrows of genius, "mighty- 
poets in their misery dead" throng foremost 
among the gifted sons of men. We are apt, 
however, tacitly to compliment the present age by 
carrying our regrets and indignant sympathies to 
previous times. Butler, the victim of neglect and 
ingratitude ; Otway, struggling ineffectually with 
the most humiliating poverty, and perishing in 
the struggle ; Chatterton, in the frenzy of famine 
rushing through the gates of death ; Burns, heart- 
broken : these are all deep tragedies ; we think of 
them with a sigh, and then thank heaven such times 
are over. Yet, if absolute starvation is less fre- 
quently than formerly the doom of genius, as long 
as the sublime words remain " Man shall not live 
by bread alone," so long will genius have to mourn, 
and master, if it can, its sorrows and its wrongs. 

The four names that head our chapter, perhaps, 
present as remarkable a manifestation of varied 
genius as ever blazed out in youth, and then 



HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 331 

suddenly ceased, amid the wonder and the tears 
of a world, bereaved, not only of its possessions, 
but its hopes. 

Henry Kirke White was born in humble life 
March 21st, 1785, and not only so, but the 
business of his father, a butcher, in Nottingham, 
was from the first dawn of consciousness pain- 
fully uncongenial to the mind of this very sensi- 
tive and observant child. One inestimable blessing, 
however, compensated all other sorrows. Henry 
had a mother who deeply sympathised with his 
feelings, and who early noticed and appreciated 
his genius. The mother and son were all the 
world to each other. She was an intelligent, supe- 
rior woman. Under her instruction, the child, 
at seven years of age, was not only fond of 
reading, and devoured every book that came in 
his way, but he began to express his thoughts in 
writing, his mother being the confidant of his 
compositions. It appears that the father, unmoved 
either by the gentle boy's dislike of his business, 
or the objections of the mother, persisted in his 
intention of compelling Henry to follow the trade 
of a butcher. 

At the age of thirteen Henry had made con- 
siderable progress in his English studies, completely 
mastered the French language, and commenced 
the poetic compositions that have won his fame. 
Nevertheless, carrying the butcher's basket formed 



332 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the principal occupation of his daily life ; and at 
fourteen a complete conclusion was put to his 
school education by his father's determination. 

At this time, the good mother, anxious to aid 
her gifted son, and to rescue him from his un- 
worthy toil, assisted by her daughter, commenced 
a girls' school, and being, by the success of this 
effort, able to add to the family income, she pre- 
vailed with her husband to give up his determi- 
nation, and to let the studious and gentle boy 
continue his studies. 

But, though the mother's efforts to rescue her 
son were successful, the means to educate him 
as she wished, and he deserved, could not be pro- 
cured, and Henry was, at length, placed in an 
attorney's office, a lengthened term of servitude 
being agreed on instead of the usual premium. 
In the first two years of his term, the youth 
acquired considerable proficiency in Latin, and 
made some acquaintance, almost without assist- 
ance, with Greek, and also the Italian, Spanish, 
and Portuguese. Besides these studies, at fifteen, 
he contributed frequently to several periodicals, 
and at seventeen, prepared, by the advice of a 
friend, a volume of poems for the press. 

These poems were the means of introducing 
him to his affectionate and admiring biographer, 
Robert Southey, whose generous enthusiasm has 
so successfully directed public attention to the 



HENRY KIUKE WHITE. 333 

genius of Henry Kirke White. The mind of the 
young poet, meanwhile, was passing through many 
conflicts. For a time the dark clouds of scepticism 
had gathered round him, and obscured the light 
of truth ; but, after a brief period of dreary, dis- 
satisfied groping in the gloom, the Sun of Righte- 
ousness arose upon his soul, and the mists rolled 
away to return no more. One paramount desire 
now possessed him; he wished to devote his 
talents to the service of the Church, and was 
soon enabled, by the aid of friends, to enter 
St. John's College, Cambridge, as a sizar. Here, 
at length, free to study, the long-repressed desires 
broke forth with unusual impetuosity ; he wished 
to gain a university scholarship, and gave himself 
up to that honourable ambition with all the ardour 
of youth and hope. His health, unhappily, never 
robust, gave way; and his whole term of college 
life was an incessant struggle of his mental powers 
with his declining physical strength. His writings 
during this period show the conflicts of his mind ; 
these, however, were at length calmed, and a 
heavenly spirit of resignation and peace was his. 
He died in 1806, at the age of twenty-one. His 
brief life is a poem, sweet, tender, heroic ! 

The principal poetic efforts of Henry Kirke 
White are "Clifton Grove" and " Gondoline," 
both showing great descriptive and imaginative 
power. His shorter poems, particularly his son- 



334 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

nets, are, perhaps, the most known. It seems as if, 
long before his last illness, he had a prescience of 
his early death and its cause ; for, when not more 
than fourteen, "Consumption" formed, strangely 
enough, the subject of an eccentric drama, a 
subject he often afterwards recurred to, — indeed 
that seemed to haunt him. 

He says, 

TO CONSUMPTION, 

" Gently, most gently, on thy victim's head, 
Consumption, lay thy hand ! Let me decay, 
Like the expiring lamp, unseen away, 
And softly go to slumber with the dead. 
And if 'tis true what holy men have said, 
That strains angelic oft foretel the day 
Of death, to those good men who fall thy prey, 
O let the aerial music round my bed, 
Dissolving sad in dying symphony, 
Whisper the solemn warning in mine ear, 
That I may bid my weeping friends good bye 
Ere I depart upon my journey drear; 
And smiling faintly on the painful past, 
Compose my decent head, and breathe my last." 

A very exquisite sonnet is that 

TO EVENING. 

" Ye unseen spirits ! Whose wild melodies 
At evening rising slow, yet sweetly clear, 
Steal on the musing poet's pensive ear, 
As by the wood-spring stretch'd supine he lies, 



HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 335 

When he who now invokes you low is laid, 
His tir'd frame resting on the earth's cold bed, 
Hold ye your nightly vigils o'er his head 
And chant a dirge to his reposing shade ! 
For he was wont to love your madrigals, 
And often by the haunted stream that laves 
The dark sequester' d woodland's inmost caves, 
Would sit and listen to the dying falls, 
'Till the full tear would quiver in his eye, 
And his big heart would heave with mournful ex- 
stasy." 

There are few short poems more elegant than 
his lines 

TO AN EARLY PRIMROSE. 

" Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire ! 
Whose modest form, so delicately fine, 
Was nurs'd in whirling storms, 
And cradled in the winds. 

" Thee, when young Spring first question'd Winter's 
sway, 
And dar'd the sturdy blusterer to the fight — 
Thee, on this bank he threw 
To mark his victory. 

" In this low vale, the promise of the year 
Serene, thou openest to the nipping gale, 
Unnotic'd and alone, 
Thy tender elegance. 

" So virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms 
Of chill adversity, in some lone walk 
Of life she rears her head, 
Obscure and unobserv'd, 



336 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" While every bleaching breeze that on her blows 
Chastens her spotless purity of breast, 
And hardens her to bear 
Serene — the ills of life." 

The genius of this youthful poet, so early lost, 
was so manifest, that men of very diverse sen- 
timents, and totally opposite theories of poetry, 
united to honour his name and mourn his pre- 
mature death. Southey and Byron, if on no 
other theme, agreed here. Very unaffectedly, with 
true pathos, Byron says, 

" No marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep, 
But living statues there are seen to weep ; 
Affection's semblance bends not o'er thy tomb, 
Affection's self deplores thy youthful doom." 

And again, referring sorrowfully to those studies 
that had so impaired his health, and probably 
shortened his life, he says, 

" Unhappy White ! while life was in its spring, 
And thy young muse just wav'd her joyous wing, 
The spoiler came ; and all thy promise fair 
Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there. 
Oh ! what a noble heart was here undone 
When science' self destroy' d her favourite son ! 
Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit, 
She sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd the fruit; 
'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, 
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low. 
So the struck eagle stretch'd upon the plain, 
No more through rolling clouds to soar again ; 



ROBERT POLLOK. 337 

View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, 
And wing'd the shaft that quiver 'd in his heart. 
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel 
He nurs'd the pinion which impell'd the steel ; 
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest 
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast." 

A similar fate, though not quite so early in life, 
befell another youthful poet of remarkable genius. 
Robert Pollok, the author of " The Course of 
Time/' was the youngest son of a farmer at 
Muirhouse, about eleven miles from Glasgow. 
He was born in 1798, and received the usual 
education given to Scottish children of his class. 
The boy was studious, and used to pass the long 
winter evenings (his only leisure time) in reading. 
At fourteen he was put to learn the business of a 
cartwright ; but an elder brother, who was study- 
ing for the ministry, noticing Robert's talents and 
habits of study, advised his leaving mechanical 
pursuits, and attending to the improvement of his 
mind. Happily parental consent was freely given ; 
and, after two years' preparation, the youth was 
admitted to the University of Glasgow, where he 
took a degree at the age of twenty-two, and sub- 
sequently became a candidate for the ministry. 
The discourses prepared by him attracted notice, 
not unmixed with censure, for their remarkable 
brilliancy and power. His constant application, 
it was thought, accelerated, if it did not induce, 

z 



338 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the ill health that began to threaten him. In 
May, 1827, he was licensed to preach by the 
United Associate Presbytery of Edinburgh ; but 
he did not long exercise the sacred function, 
preaching only a very few times. Consump- 
tion made swift strides towards the victim. His 
remarkable poem was the product of a long- 
cherished idea that he had conceived when a mere 
boy, fourteen years before it was completed. The 
last two years of the author's life was the time 
devoted to the working out of this youthful idea ; 
and, frequently, so rapid was the poet, a thousand 
lines were written weekly. He needed to be 
rapid, it was a race with death. " The Course of 
Time" was published very near the period that 
terminated the author's life, without "apology, 
proem, argument, or table of contents," nothing 
but its plain title, and — u A Poem in Ten Books." 
It came from a death-bed to the reader. It is 
not surprising that it attracted immediate atten- 
tion, nor that in the midst of wonder and applause, 
some opinions were uttered of an adverse kind. 

Robert Pollok aspired to be eminently a sacred 
poet : for this he lived, studied, wrote, prayed, 
and died.* That he was permitted to realise that 
desire no religious reader can doubt ; but the very 
fact of the exclusively sacred character of his 

* In the sense that a conviction of duty caused him to 
study beyond his strength. 



ROBERT POLLOK. 339 

theme would necessarily prevent a thoughtless or 
a worldly mind from enjoying it. The plan of 
his poem is highly original, and his Christian 
principles were so strict, that he rejected the 
machinery of heathen classical allusions, so libe- 
rally used by many religious poets, and confined 
himself to imagery supplied or suggested by the 
Scriptures. This simplicity scarcely comports 
with the epic form of poetry. It is said, " The 
whole story may be given in a sentence. Many 
ages after the end of our world, a spirit, from one 
of the numerous worlds existing in space, on his 
flight towards heaven, discovers the abode of lost 
men in hell ; reaching heaven, he inquires of two 
spirits, who welcome his arrival there, what is the 
meaning of the wretchedness he had just wit- 
nessed. The two, unable fully to answer, conduct 
the inquirer to a bard, who once lived on earth, 
and he, in answering their inquiries, relates the 
history of man, from the creation to the judg- 
ment." This plan, simple and limited as to plot, 
is boundless as to range. The imagination, un- 
fettered, soars far and wide ; the past, the future, 
blend in one grand whole, and, though no rules 
of structure or composition are strictly followed, 
the glowing thoughts shape the poem into a 
form always grand and striking, and often truly 
sublime. 

Z 2 



340 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Nothing can be more just and noble than the 
following stanzas on 



FALSE AND TRUE LIBERTY. 

" One passion prominent appears, the lust 
Of power, which ofttimes took the fairer name 
Of liberty, and hung the popular flag 
Of freedom out. Many, indeed, its names. 
When on the throne it sat, and round the neck 
Of millions riveted its iron chain, 
And on the shoulders of the people laid 
Burdens unmerciful, it title took 
Of tyranny, oppression, despotism ; 
And every tongue was weary cursing it. 
When in the multitude it gathered strength, 
And, like an ocean bursting from its bounds, 
Long beat in vain, went forth resistlessly, 
It bore the stamp and designation, then, 
Of popular fury, anarchy, rebellion ; 
And honest men bewail'd all order void ; 
All laws annull'd ; all property destroy 'd ; 
The venerable, murder' d in the streets ; 
The wise, despis'd ; streams, red with human blood ; 
Harvests, beneath the frantic foot trod down ; 
Lands, desolate ; and famine at the door. 



" This was earth's liberty, its nature this, 
However nam'd, in whomsoever found, 
And found it was in all of woman born, — 
Each man to make all subject to his will ; 
To make them do, undo, eat, drink, stand, move, 
Talk, think, and feel, exactly as he chose. 
Hence the eternal strife of brotherhoods, 



ROBERT POLLOK. 341 

Of individuals, families, commonwealths. 

The root from which it grew was pride ; bad root, 

And bad the fruit it bore. Then wonder not, 

That long the nations from it richly reap'd 

Oppression, slavery, tyranny, and war ; 

Confusion, desolation, trouble, shame. 

And marvellous though it seem, this monster, when 

It took the name of slavery, as oft 

It did, had advocates to plead its cause ; 

Beings that walk'd erect, and spoke like men ; 

Of Christian parentage descended, too, 

And dipp'd in the baptismal font, as sign 

Of dedication to the Prince who bow'd 

To death, to set the sin-bound prisoner free. 

" Unchristian thought ! on what pretence soe'er 
Of right, inherited, or else aequir'd ; 
Of loss, or profit, or what plea you name, 
To buy and sell, to barter, whip, and hold 
In chains, a being of celestial make ; 
Of kindred form, of kindred faculties, 
Of kindred feelings, passions, thoughts, desires ; 
Born free, and heir of an immortal hope ; 
Thought villanous, absurd, detestable ! 
Unworthy to be harbour'd in a fiend ! 
And only overreached in wickedness 
By that, birth too of earthly liberty, 
Which aim'd to make a reasonable man 
By legislation think, and by the sword 
Believe. This was that liberty renown d, 
Those equal rights of Greece and Rome, where men, 
All, but a few, were bought, and sold, and scourg'd, 
And kilFd, as interest or caprice enjoin' d ; 
In after times talk'd of, written of, so much, 
That most, by sound and custom led away, 
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342 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, 

Believ'd the essence answer' d to the name. 
Historians on this theme were long and warm. 
Statesmen, drunk with the fumes of vain debate, 
In lofty swelling phrase, calFd it perfection. 
Philosophers its rise, advance, and fall, 
Trac'd carefully : and poets kindled still, 
As memory brought it up ; their lips were touch' d 
With fire, and utter' d words that men adorM. 
Even he, true bard of Zion, holy man ! 
To whom the Bible taught this precious verse, 
< He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,' 
By fashion (though by fashion little sway'd) 
Scarce kept his harp from pagan freedom's praise. 

" The captive prophet, whom Jehovah gave 
The future years, described it best, when he 
Beheld it rise in vision of the night : 
A dreadful beast, and terrible, and strong 
Exceedingly, with mighty iron teeth ; 
And, lo, it brake in pieces, and devoured, 
And stamp'd the residue beneath its feet ! 

44 True liberty was Christian, sanctified, 
Baptiz'd, and found in Christian hearts alone ; 
First-born of Virtue, daughter of the skies, 
Nursling of truth divine, sister of all 
The graces, meekness, holiness, and love ; 
Giving to God, and man, and all below, 
That symptom show'd of sensible existence, 
Their due, unask'd ; fear to whom fear was due ; 
To all, respect, benevolence, and love : 
Companion of religion, where she came, 
There freedom came; where dwelt, there freedom 

dwelt ; 
KuFd where she rul'd, expir'd where she expir'd." 



JOHN KEATS. 343 

The parallel in the genius, the principles, and 
the fate of Henry Kirke White and Robert Pol- 
lok, is not more remarkable than that manifested 
in two illustrious young poets of a different meta- 
physical school, whose imaginative powers were 
of the very highest range, and whose verse was 
of unsurpassed melody, — John Keats and Percy 
Bysshe Shelley. The discipline of life to each was 
stern and bitter, beyond the usual experience even 
of genius. 

John Keats published his first lengthened poem, 
" Endymion," in 1818, when he was twenty-one or 
twenty »t wo years of age. Determined to be free of 
all trammels, he constructed this poem in a wild 
unmeasured style and stanza. It abounds in the 
faults and beauties of youth and genius, exuberant, 
luxuriant, unpruned; a tangled wilderness, yet 
a wilderness of sweets. A deprecating preface, 
gentle as the poet's heart, and fervid as his brain, 
appealed to critic and reader for indulgence and 
sympathy. Alas ! appealed in vain. One of the 
most severe reviews that ever critic penned ap- 
peared in the " Quarterly." Scorn, contempt, ridi- 
cule, blended in that article, even while the critic 
gravely told his readers he had not read the poem 
he so abused ! He defended himself from the charge 
of inconsistency by pleading the utter impossi- 
bility of reading it. 

Keats with the fullest measure of a poet's ima- 

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344 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

gination, had an equal share of susceptibility. 
His health, also, was delicate; and when this 
review appeared, it produced a most violent agi- 
tation of his mind and frame, that ended in the 
rupture of a bloodvessel in the lungs, and con- 
sumption ensued. He went to Italy in search of 
health and tranquillity, and found neither. Poetry, 
at once his joy and sorrow, was the occupation of 
his life. His " Eve of St. Agnes" has been ad- 
mitted by all real lovers of poetry not only to 
contain passages of unsurpassed descriptive power, 
but, as a whole, to be complete in loveliness. The 
story is founded on a superstition connected with 
the legend of St. Agnes, who, according to old 
chronicles, was a Roman virgin who suffered mar- 
tyrdom in the reign of Dioclesian. The superstition 
is, that on the eve of her festival, by taking certain 
plans of divination, or incantation, maidens will 
have a vision in which their future husband will be 
revealed to them. In the story of Keats a real 
lover takes advantage of the superstition to pre- 
sent himself to his beloved, to plead his cause, and 
bear her off as his bride. 

The description of Madeline entering her 
chamber, extinguishing her light, kneeling to 
prayer while the moonbeams on the painted win- 
dow of the chamber threw richest colours over 
the kneeling maiden, — the unrobing and retiring 
to rest, are all described with a pure spiritual grace 



JOHN KEATS. 345 

that etherealises the tender human interest of the 
poem. 

" Out went the taper as she hurried in ; 
Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died : 
She elos'd the door, she panteth all akin 
To spirits of the air and visions wide, 
Xor utter' d syllable, or ' woe betide ! ' 
But to her heart her heart was voluble, 
Paining with eloquence her balmy side : 
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell 
Her throat in vain, and die heart- stifled in her delh 

" A casement high and triple- arch'd there was, 
All garlanded with carven images 
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, 
And diamonded with panes of quaint device, 
Innumerable, of stains and splendid dyes, 
As are the tiger-moth's deep damask'd wings ; 
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, 
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, 
A shielded 'scutcheon blush' d with blood of queens and 
kings. 

" Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, 
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, 
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon : 
Rose-bloom fell on her hands together press'd, 
And on her silver cross soft amethyst, 
And on her hair a glory like a saint ; 
She seeni'd a splendid angel newly drest, 
Save wings, for heaven. — Porphyro grew faint, 
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. 

" Anon his heart revives, her vespers done, 
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees ; 



346 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one ; 

Loosens her fragrant boddice ; by degrees 

Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees : 

Half hidden, like a mermaid in sea- weed, 

Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees 

In fancy fair Saint Agnes in her bed, 

But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled. 

" Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, 
In sort of wakeful swoon perplex' d she lay, 
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress' d 
Her smoothed limbs, and soul, fatigued away, 
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow day ; 
Blissfully haven' d both from joy and pain ; 
Clasp' d like a missal where swart Paynims pray ; 
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, 
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again." 

Keats died in Eome 1821, at the age of twenty- 
four or twenty-five. His " Hyperion," a fragment, 
has been called by an eminent brother poet, " second 
to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of 
the same years." Though sorrows of many kinds 
gathered round the poet's death -bed, he was soothed 
as far as human sympathy could impart comfort 
by the constant affection of a devoted friend, Mr. 
Severn, a young artist who had accompanied him 
to Italy, and who, neglecting everything else, at- 
tended on his dying friend with a tender friendship, 
like that which made Israel's bard exclaim, w Thy 
love to me was wonderful, passing the love of 
women." The death of Keats called forth a re- 
markable and beautiful poem— " Adonais," from 



SHELLEY. 347 

one competent to estimate his genius and his 
sorrows. 

Percy By sshe Shelley, born 1792, whose brief life 
passed in storms and sorrows, and ended violently ; 
has left a name indelibly imprinted among the lofty 
poets of his land. The influence of his great origi- 
nal genius is felt, not only when we read his own 
poems, but it pervades the writings of every meta- 
physical poet of our own time. 

Shelley, during his life, was not only misunder- 
stood by others, but it is evident, in some parti- 
culars, he misunderstood himself. The most 
spiritual and ethereal of modern poets, he rashly 
gave in his adhesion to the theories of sceptical 
philosophers, who " of the earth earthy," like the 
Sadducees of old, believed in neither " angel nor 
spirit." Shelley, to whom the whole universe 
was vocal with spirit-voices, who heard them at 
all times and from all sources, whose own soul 
had so little of the dross of earth about it that he 
seemed fitted to hold communion with beings of a 
finer mould, — yet stood 

" In his white ideal 
All statue-blind," 

as far as perception of the authority and loveli- 
ness of the Christian faith is concerned ! Why 
this blindness? Persecution from his childhood 
had seared his mental vision. He was by 



348 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

turns throughout his whole life the victim of 
parental, scholastic, and legal tyranny. Religion 
was a word ever on the lips of his oppressors — a 
word rendered odious to him by their conduct. 
He seems never to have seen Christianity really 
embodied in the life of its professors. Lord 
Bacon's remark, " It were better to have no opinion 
of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy 
of him," may be carried still further — it were 
better Christianity had no disciples at all than 
such as serve only to bring it into contempt. 

Shelley was of a singularly affectionate, gentle, 
impulsive, yet resolute spirit. Love he could 
never have resisted — persecution made him un- 
yielding. At Eton his sense of justice was 
shocked at the fagging system, and he refused on 
principle to fag, and became in consequence the 
victim of tyrants old and young — masters and 
pupils* This first experiment roused the martyr 
spirit, and confirmed him the antagonist of 
tyranny, or what he thought such, in every form. 
College life was equally repugnant to him. 
Hollow profession and sleek hypocrisy he thought 
he detected at every turn. He wrote, at the age of 
eighteen, in the wild effervescence of his feelings, 
a dramatic poem, " Queen Mab," that attacked at 
random all that to his heated imagination seemed 
wrong. This poem he never published ; it was 
printed for private circulation among his friends. 



SHELLEY. 349 

He was expelled the university, and disinherited as 
far as parental anger could disinherit an heir at law. 
An imprudent and unfortunate marriage, and legal 
difficulties, followed. His name was stigmatised, 
his character and principles misrepresented and 
distorted. He left his native land, never to re- 
turn, in 1818. While hatred and calumny were 
busy with his name, and his own rashness aided 
their malice, — while multitudes were taught to 
think only of him as a monster, the few who 
knew him idolised him. Like many men of 
exceedingly gentle spirit, he wrote strongly. 
Seldom apt, in speaking, to use words too 
vehemently, and rarely erring in daily inter- 
course from severity, such men are less liable 
to restrain their written style, or to be watchful 
over the force of their expressions, It is a gra- 
tifying fact that Shelley's second wife (the daugh- 
ter of celebrated parents, Mary Wolstoncroft and 
William Godwin) was in all respects a congenial 
spirit — that in her love he found all the solace 
that human sympathy could give to a soul like 
his. Shelley, in the midst of some of nature's 
loveliest scenes in lands of old renown, continued 
to write, heedless that the world continued to 
rail. His wife, in the graceful, pathetic, and 
most temperate commentary, appended to her 
edition of his works, remarks, in reference to the 
youthful poem that produced such bitter fruit to 



350 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the writer, " It is a singular fact in the history 
of society in the civilised nations of modern times, 
that no false step is so irretrievable as one made 
in early youth." 

It is certain that he saw reason to regret that 
first poem, and that maturing judgment had modi- 
fied his opinions, for when, without his authority, 
this early poem was made public, he immediately 
wrote thus to a leading journal : — 

" A poem entitled ' Queen Mab ' was written by me at 
the age of eighteen, I dare say in a sufficiently intemperate 
spirit — but even then was not intended for publication, and 
a few copies only were struck off, to be distributed among 
my personal friends. I have not seen this production for 
several years ; I doubt not but that it is perfectly worth- 
less in point of literary composition, and that in all that 
concerns moral and political speculation as well as in the 
subtler discrimination of metaphysical and religious doc- 
trine it is still more crude and immature. I am a devoted 
enemy to religious, political, and domestic oppression, and 
I regret this poem not so much from literary vanity as 
because I fear it is better fitted to injure than to serve the 
sacred cause of freedom. I have directed my solicitor to 
apply to Chancery for an injunction to restrain the sale."* 

Those who judged him so harshly, and who 
even yet regard his name with doubt approaching 
to dislike, would do well to remember that if, 
when the Divine Teacher was on earth, he had 

* Letter to the Editor of the Examiner, June 22. 1821. 



SHELLEY. 351 

need to reprove his most loving and beloved dis- 
ciples^ as they wished fire to come down and 
consume the Samaritans, saying, " Ye know not 
what spirit ye are of ; " that a similar reproof is 
often needed now, and would be far more likely 
to be given, as of old, for a want, than an excess 
of charity. 

His widow says of him, " He had been from 
youth the victim of the state of feeling inspired 
by the reaction of the French Revolution ; and 
believing firmly in the justice and excellence of 
his views, it cannot be wondered that a nature as 
sensitive, as impetuous, and as generous as his, 
should put its whole force into the attempt to 
alleviate for others the evils of those systems 
from which he had himself suffered. Many 
advantages attended his birth ; he spurned them 
all when balanced with what he considered his 
duties. He was generous to imprudence, devoted 
to heroism."* 

" Through life also he was a martyr to ill- 
health, and constant pain wound up his nerves 
to a pitch of susceptibility that rendered his 
views of life different from those of a man in the 
enjoyment of healthy sensations." 

There is for the most part an absence of dis- 
tinct human interest in his noblest poems. His 
imagination soared into the region of the spiritual, 

* The Poetical Works of P. B. Shelley, edited by Mrs. 
Shelley, Preface, p. 9. 



352 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

and even where his themes were of earth and its 
darkest passions, as in his grand dramatic efforts, 
he sublimated and etherealised until perhaps only 
the highly imaginative could follow him. This 
peculiarity has made him the poet of poets. 
They read his dreamy musings, share his en- 
chanted reverie, enjoy the sensuous spirituality of 
his imagery, and revel in the voluptuous melody 
of his verse. No wonder, then, that the in- 
structed reader often catches a tone of his voice, a 
subtle interflowing of his imagery, in the lays of 
many a gifted living poet, male and female. 
And of these poets, the more devotional their 
spirit, the more decidedly Christian their stanzas, 
the more this influence is manifest. 

Some of Shelley's shorter poems are entirely 
inimitable and unequalled. " The Cloud," i6 The 
Sensitive Plant," "The Skylark," are of this 
class. They may be ranked as gems, rarest 
among the rare. " The Cloud " was composed 
in England, as in his boat he floated on the bosom 
of the Thames, and gazed on the fleecy drapery of 
the sky. " The Skylark " was written in Italy. 
Mrs. Shelley says, "In the spring of 1820 we spent 
a week or two near Leghorn, borrowing the house 
of some friends who were absent on a journey 
to England. It was on a beautiful summer 
evening, while wandering among the lanes where 
myrtle hedges were the bowers of the fire-flies, 



SHELLEY. 353 

that we heard the carolling of the skylark, which 
inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems." 



TO A SKYLARK. 

" Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 
Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

" Higher still and higher, 

From the earth thou springest, 
Like a cloud of fire ! 
4 The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing, still dost soar ; and soaring, ever singest. 

" In the golden lightning 
Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are bright' ning, 
Thou dost float and run ; 
Like an embodied joy, whose race has just begun. 

" The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight ; 
Like a star of heaven 
In the broad daylight, 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. 

" Keen as are the arrows 
Of that silver sphere 
Whose intense lamp narrows 
In the white dawn clear. 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 
A A 



354 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" All the earth and air 
With thy voice is loud, 
As, when night is bare, 
From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd. 

" What thou art we know not. 
What is most like thee ? 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see, 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 

" Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 
Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded ft ot. 

" Like a high-born maiden 
In a palace tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul, in secret hour, 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower. 

" Like a glow-worm golden 
In a deli of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the 
view. 

" Like a rose embowered 
In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflower'd, 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy -winged 
thieves. 



SHELLEY. 355 

" Sound of vernal showers 
On the twinkling grass, 
Rain- awaken' d flowers, 
All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 

" Teach me, sprite or bird, 

What sweet thoughts are thine ; 
I have never heard 
Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 

" Chorus hymeneal, 

Or triumphal chaunt, 
Match'd with thine would be all 
But an empty vaunt — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 

" What objects are the fountains 
Of thy happy strain ? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
What shapes of sky or plain ? 
What love of thine own kind ? What ignorance of pain ? 

" With thy clear keen joyance 
Languor cannot be ; 
Shadow of annoyance 
Never came near thee : 
Thou lovest ; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 

" Waking or asleep, 

Thou of death must deem 
Things more true and deep 
Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy note flow in such a crystal stream ? 

A A 2 



356 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" We look before and after, 
And pine for what is not ; 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught ; 
Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought. 

" Yet if we could scorn 

Hate, and pride, and fear ; 
If we were things born 
Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 

" Better than all measures 
Of delightful sound, 
Better than all treasures 
That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground. 

" Teach me half the gladness 
That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow, 
The world should listen then as I am listening now. 

The " Adonais," written in memory of Keats, 
one year before Shelley's own death, is not only 
remarkable in itself for beauty and appropriate- 
ness, but as embodying the thoughts of one who 
was soon to share the grave of the poet he 
lamented. Mozart's " Requiem " was not more 
prophetic than this poem. Each line applied to 
one, suits both. How accurate the description ! — 

" Midst others of less note came one frail form, 
A phantom among men ; companionless 
As the last cloud of an expiring storm, 
Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess, 



SHELLEY. 357 

Had gaz'd on nature's naked loveliness 
Acteon-like, and now he fled astray, 
With feeble steps, o'er the world's wilderness, 
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, 
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their 
prey. 

M A pard-like spirit beautiful and swift! 
A love in desolation mask'd ; a power 
Girt round with weakness ; it can scarce uplift 
The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 
A breaking billow ; even while we speak 
Is it not broken ? On the withering flower 
The killing sun smiles brightly : on a cheek 
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may 
break. 

" His head was bound with pansies overblown, 
And faded violets white, and pied, and blue ; 
And a light spear topp'd with a cypress cone, 
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy- tresses grew, 
Yet dripping with the forest's noontide dew, 
Vibrated as the ever-beating heart 
Shook the weak hand that grasped ; of that crew 
He came the last, neglected and apart ; 
A herd- abandon' d deer, struck by the hunter's dart." 
****** * 

Equally appropriate to Shelley himself are the 
following stanzas : — 

" The splendours of the firmament of Time 
May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not ; 
Like stars to their appointed height they climb ; 
And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
a a 3 



358 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 

Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, 

And love and life contend in it, for what 

Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, 

And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air/' 

The concluding lines remarkably foreshadow 
Shelley's approaching fate. 

" The breath whose might I have evok'd in song 
Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar ; 
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the eternal are." 

The last poem Shelley wrote was mostly com- 
posed in the fatal boat in which he perished ; it 
was called " The Triumph of Life." The last 
lines he penned were — 

* * * " Thus on the way 
Mask after mask fell from the countenance 
And form of all, and long before the day 

Was old, the joy which wak'd like heaven's glance 
The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died ; 
And some grew weary of the ghastly dance, 

And fell, as I have fallen, by the way side, — 
Those soonest from whose forms most shadows past, 
And least of strength and beauty did abide. 

Then, what is life ? I cried." 



SHELLEY. 359 

Shelley all his life had a passion for boating. 
The record of the poet's death has been given by 
his wife as no one else could give it. 

u On the 1st of July they left us. If ever shadow of 
future ill darkened the present hour, such was over my 
mind when they went. I did not anticipate danger for 
them, but a vague expectation of evil shook me to agony, 
and I could scarcely bring myself to let them go. The 
day was calm and clear, and a fine breeze rising at twelve, 
they weighed for Leghorn : they made the run of about fifty 
miles in seven hours and a half. The Bolivar was in port, 
and the regulations of the health- office not permitting them 
to go on shore after sunset, they borrowed cushions from 
the larger vessel, and slept on board their boat. They 
spent a week at Pisa and Leghorn. The want of rain was 
severely felt in the country. The weather continued sultry 
and fine. I have heard that Shelley all this time was in 
brilliant spirits. Not long before, talking of presentiments, 
he had said the only one that he ever found infallible was 
the certain advent of some evil fortune when he felt pecu- 
liarly joyous. Yet if ever fate whispered of coming dis- 
aster, such inaudible, but not unfelt, prognostics hovered 
around us. The beauty of the place seemed unearthly in 
its excess ; the distance we were at from all signs of civi- 
lisation, the sea at our feet, its murmurs or its roarings for 
ever in our ears, — all these things led the mind to brood 
over strange thoughts, and, lifting it from every-day life, 
caused it to be familiar with the unreal. A sort of spell 
surrounded us, and each day, as the voyagers did not re- 
turn, we grew restless and disquieted, and yet, strange to 
say, we were not fearful of the most apparent danger. The 
spell snapped, it was all over ! an interval of agonizing 

A A 4 



360 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

doubt — of days passed in miserable journeys to gain 
tidings, of hopes that took firmer root, even as they were 
more senseless — were changed to the certainty of the death 
which eclipsed all happiness for the survivors for evermore. 
There was something in our fate peculiarly harrowing. 
The remains of those we lost were cast on shore ; but by 
the quarantine laws of the coast we were not permitted to 
have possession of them, — the laws with respect to every 
thing cast on land by the sea, being, that such should be 
burnt, to prevent the possibility of any relic bringing 
plague into Italy ; and no representation could alter the 
law. At length, through the kind and unwearied exertions 
of Mr. Dawkins, our charge d' Affaires at Florence, we 
gained permission to receive the ashes after the bodies 
were consumed. Nothing could equal the zeal of Tre- 
lawney in carrying our wishes into effect. He was inde- 
fatigable in his exertions, and full of forethought and 
sagacity in his arrangements. It was a fearful task. He 
stood before us at last, his hands scorched and blistered by 
the flames of the funeral pyre, and by touching the burnt 
relics as he placed them into the receptacles prepared for 
the purpose. And there, in compass of that small case, was 
gathered all that remained on earth of him whose genius 
and virtue were a crown of glory to the world — whose 
love had been the source of happiness, peace, and good, to 
be buried with him." — Shelley's Poems (MoxorCs Edition) , 
vol. iv. p. 232. 

It is significant of the force of prejudice against 
the name of Shelley, that it was thought advisable 
to allow some years to elapse before his collected 
works, edited by his widow, were given to the 
public. Thus, though he died in 1822, an autho- 
rised edition of his poems did not appear until 



SHELLEY. 361 

1839. In these seventeen intervening years many 
political and literary changes had occurred. Less 
dictation and more inquiry became apparent. The 
truly pious — at all times the truly merciful — 
never thought it necessary to laud themselves by 
sweeping condemnation of others. They always 
saw that persecution had caused and confirmed 
all they mourned over as Shelley's speculative 
errors. His sorrows and wrongs were bitter 
enough to propitiate even those who were — 

" Severe by rule, and not by nature kind." 

The fact, too, that he was but twenty-nine when 
his troubled career closed, will ever plead with 
the thoughtful and the good in extenuation of his 
opinions. Xobly has Mrs. Hemans sung, — 



u Oh ! judge with thoughtful tenderness of those 
Who richly dower'd for earth are call'd to die 
Ere the soul's flame through storms hath won repose 
In truth's divinest ether pure and high. 
Let their mind's riches claim a trustful sigh ; 
Deem them but sad, sweet fragments of a strain, 
First notes of some yet struggling harmony, 
By the strong rush, the mingled joy and pain 
Of many inspirations, met and held 
From its true sphere. Oh, soon it would have swell'd 
Majestically forth. Xor doubt that He, 
Whose touch mysterious may on earth dissolve, 
Such links of music elsewhere will evolve, 
The grand consummate hymn from passion's gusts made 
free." 



362 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



CHAP. XIX. 

POETICAL CONTROVERSIES OF THE PRESENT AGE. — CON- 
FLICTING THEORIES. LAKE SCHOOL. WORDSWORTH, 

COLERIDGE, SOUTHET, LORD BYRON, SIR WALTER SCOTT, 
CAMPBELL, AND MOORE. 

The return to truth and nature (at the end of the 
last century, after a long period of coldness and 
sterility), which had been brought about princi- 
pally by Crabbe, Cowper, and Burns, was neither 
so unnoticed or unfelt by the public mind as to 
pass quietly without comment. The age had 
grown critical. Not merely the usages of poets, 
but poetry in the abstract, began to be the subject 
of many theories and speculations among readers, 
who, in former times, would have contented them- 
selves with quietly and gratefully taking 

" The good the gods provide." 

rather than investigating and analysing it. 

It was one result, equally excellent and natural, 
of our ample periodical literature, that analysis 
and speculation should increase ; and when it was 
found that the first poets and critics of the age 
differed essentially as to their theory and estimate 
of poetry, and the poetic, it is no wonder that 
controversy should arise, that disputants should 
be warm, and that parties should be formed. 



WORDSWOKTH. 363 

There is nothing that the world more constantly 
demands, and more frequently rejects, than origi- 
nality. The world sets up standards, prescribes 
limits, lays down plans for genius : — genius ! that 
neither can be formed, or bounded, or moulded 
by any mental laws but those of its own being. 
If any thing in this world has distinctness of in- 
dividuality it is genius ; and yet it is contrasted, 
compared, derided, and rejected, by rules equally 
false and presumptuous. No wonder that the 
unthinking err in this matter, for the wise them- 
selves have here often gone astray. Not a single 
great poet of the present age has escaped the 
infliction of carping criticism. Many now vene- 
rated names were greeted by a perfect storm of 
ridicule on their first appearance, and that, not by 
the merely incompetent, who can only praise or 
blame at the suggestion of others, but by the 
educated, the studious, and the gifted. 

William Wordsworth is, perhaps, the poet who, 
beyond all others, was the subject of this contro- 
versy. He looked on the circumstances of ordi- 
nary life with an eye as microscopic as that of 
Crabbe, and a soul far more capacious and reflec- 
tive. His aim was not merely to describe, but to 
analyse the effects of outward objects on his own 
mind, what they suggested for meditation, when 

" They flash upon the inward eye, 
That makes the bliss of solitude." 



364 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

He had lofty and noble views. of the mission of 
the poet, as a teacher and reformer among men, 
— a revealer of something higher and better than 
society had attained to. This object Wordsworth 
sought to promote, not by hymns of orphic me- 
lody, or wild imaginative flights in superhuman 
regions, but by calm pictures of innocent, tranquil 
beauty, pure affections, holy domestic duties and 
sympathies. Communion with God and his own 
soul was to him evidently as much a delight as a 
duty, — a law of his being that he could not con- 
travene. Happily, circumstances in his case fa- 
voured the full development and indulgence of 
all his tastes and theories. Rarely has any life had 
such harmonious completeness : happy in child- 
hood and youth ; fortunate in congenial friends and 
family connections; enabled to travel in early man- 
hood, and confirm or correct his opinions of society, 
government, and literature ; happy in his marriage 
and domestic circle; able to settle down amid 
the scenery and quietude he loved, and to give 
himself up unrestrainedly to his favourite con- 
templations. His life was as full of the quiet 
glow of healthy happiness as his writings : indeed, 
it was his idea that a poet's life was written in his 
poems ; and that was evidently his own case. 
Happy, therefore, for the world was the happiness 
of Wordsworth. His relative and biographer says, 

" The influence exercised by Wordsworth's poetry is due 



WORDSWORTH. 365 

in great measure to his home, as well as to his heart. He 
was blessed, in a remarkable degree, in all those domestic 
relations which exercise and hallow the affections. His 
cottage, its beautiful neighbourhood, the happiness he en- 
joyed in its garden, and within its doors, all these breathed 
a moral music into his heart, and enabled him to pour forth 
strains which, without such influences upon him, would 
have been unheard, and which have made him what he is 
in an eminent degree, the poet of domestic life, and the 
teacher of domestic virtue." * 

The only untoward circumstance of Words- 
worth's life was the determined and long- con- 
tinued hostility of criticism. The leaders of the 
public taste censured both the subjects he selected 
and his treatment of them ; the first they thought 
grovelling, the latter puerile. Affectation of sim- 
plicity was the chief charge. However impressed 
the public mind might be for a time, the poet him- 
self was wholly unmoved. His opinions of his 
harsh critics were pretty definitely expressed in a 
noble letter to his friend Lady Beaumont : — 

" Be assured that the decision of these persons (the re- 
viewers), has nothing to do with the question ; they are 
altogether incompetent judges. These people, in the sense- 
less hurry of their idle lives, do not read books ; they merely 
snatch a glance at them that they may talk about them. 
And even if this were not so, never forget what, I believe, 
was observed to you by Coleridge, that every great and 
original writer, in proportion as he is great or original, must 



Wordsworth's Life, vol. i. p. 373. 



366 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

create the taste by which he is to be relished ; he must 
teach the art by which he is to be seen ; this, in a certain 
degree, even to all persons, however wise and pure may be 
their lives, and however unvitiated their taste. But for 
those who dip into books in order to give an opinion of 
them, or talk about them to take up an opinion, — for this 
multitude of unhappy, and misguided, and misguiding 
beings, an entire regeneration must be produced ; and if 
this be possible, it must be the work of time. To conclude, 
my ears are stone dead to this idle buzz, and my flesh as 
insensible as iron to these petty stings." * 

Wordsworth's estimate of the capability of the 
age to enjoy poetry was not high. 

" It is an awful truth, that there neither is, nor can be, 
any genuine enjoyment of poetry among nineteen out of 
twenty of those persons who live, or wish to live, in the 
broad light of the world, — among those who either are, or 
are striving to make themselves, people of consideration in 
society. This is a truth, and an awful one, because to be 
incapable of a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the word, is 
to be without love of human nature and reverence for 
God." f 

It is well known that Wordsworth fixed his re- 
sidence at the lakes. He says, — 

" And, oh, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, 
Think not of any severing of our loves ! 
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might. 
I only have relinquish'd one delight, 



* Life of Wordsworth, vol. i. p. 338, 339. 
f Letter to Lady Beaumont, Life of Wordsworth, vol. i. 
p. 332. 



WORDSWORTH. 367 

To live beneath your more habitual sway. 
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, 
E'en more than when I tripp'd lightly as they ; 
The innocent brightness of a new-born day, 

Is lovely yet ; 
The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Do take a sober colouring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ; 
Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 
Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

His "Ode to Duty" is worthy of being studied 
for its profound moral. 

ODE TO DUTY. 

" Stern Daughter of the Voice of God ! 
O Duty ! if that name thou love, 
Who art a Light to guide, a Rod 
To check the erring, and reprove ; 
Thou, who art victory and law 
When empty terrors overawe; 
From vain temptations dost set free, 
From strife and from despair ; a glorious ministry. 

" There are who ask not if thine eye 
Be on them ; who, in love and truth, 
Where no misgiving is, rely 
Upon the genial sense of youth . 
Glad Hearts ! without reproach or blot 
Who do thy work, and know it not : 



368 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

May joy be theirs while life shall last ! 
And Thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand 
fast! 

" Serene will be our days and bright, 
And happy will our nature be, 
When love is an unerring light, 
And joy its own security. 
And bless' d are they who in the main, 
This faith, even now, do entertain ; 
Live in the spirit of this creed ; 
Yet find that other strength, according to their need. 

" I, loving freedom, and untried ; 
No sport of every random gust, 
Yet being to myself a guide, 
Too blindly have repos'd my trust : 
Resolv'd that nothing e'er should press 
Upon my present happiness, 
I shov'd unwelcome tasks away ; 
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. 

" Through no disturbance of my soul, 
Or strong compunction in me wrought, 
I supplicate for thy controul ; 
But in the quietness of thought : 
Me this uncharter'd freedom tires ; 
I feel the weight of chance-desires : 
My hopes no more must change their name, 
I long for a repose which ever is the same.. 

" Yet not the less would I throughout 
Still act according to the voice 
Of my own wish ; and feel past doubt, 
That my submissiveness was choice : 



WORDSWORTH. 369 

Not seeking in the school of pride 

For ' precepts over dignified/ 

Denial and restraint I prize, 

No farther than they breed a second Will, more wise. 

" Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 
Nor know we any thing so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face ; 
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds ; 
And Fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 
And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are 
fresh and strong. 

u To humbler functions, awful Power ! 
I call thee : I myself commend 
Unto thy guidance from this hour ; 
Oh ! let my weakness have an end ! 
Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
The spirit of self-sacrifice ; 
The confidence of reason give ; 
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live ! " 

Nothing can well be more beautiful, either in 
description or lyric flow, than his stanzas on 

THE POWER OF MUSIC. 

" An Orpheus ! an Orpheus ! — yes, Faith may grow sold, 
And take to herself all the wonders of old ; — 
Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same 
In the street that from Oxford hath borrow'd its name. 

" His station is there ; — and he works on the crowd, 
He sways them with harmony merry and loud ; 
He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim — 
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him ? 
B B 



370 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" What an eager assembly ! what an empire is this ! 
The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss ; 
The mourner is cheered, the anxious have rest ; 
And the guilt-burthend soul is no longer opprest. 

" As the Moon brightens round her the clouds of the night, 
So he, where he stands, is a centre of light ; 
It gleams on the face, there, of dusky-fac'd Jack, 
And the pale-visag'd Baker's, with basket on back. 

" That errand-bound 'Prentice was passing in haste — 
What matter ! he's caught — and his time runs to waste — 
The Newsman is stopp'd, though he stops on the fret, 
And the half-breathless Lamp-lighter he's in the net ! 

" The Porter sits down on the weight which he bore ; 
The Lass with a barrow wheels hither her store ; — 
If a Thief could be here he might pilfer with ease ; 
She sees the Musician, 'tis all that she sees ! 

" He stands, back'd by the wall; — he abates not his din; 
His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in, 
From the old and the young, the poorest — and there ! 
The one-pennied boy has his penny to spare. 

u O blest are the hearers, and proud be the hand 
Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a band ; 
I am glad for him, blind as he is ! — all the while 
If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile. 

" Thai tall Man, a giant in bulk and in height, 
Not an inch of his body is free from delight ; 
Can he keep himself still, if he would ? oh, not he ! 
The music stirs in him like wind through a tree. 



THE "LAKE SCHOOL." 371 

" There's a Cripple that leans on his crutch ; like a tower 
That long has lean'd forward, leans hour after hour ! — 
A Mother whose spirit in fetters is bound, 
While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound. 

" ^Now, Coaches and Chariots ! roar on like a stream ; 
Here are twenty souls happy as souls in a dream : 
They are deaf to your murmurs — they care not for you, 
Nor what ye are flying, or what ye pursue ! " 

The beauty of the region in which Wordsworth 
settled induced many of his literary friends, and 
among them more than one poet of eminence, to 
settle there : Coleridge and Southey were of this 
number. It was known that these great men, as 
well as Wordsworth, entertained very different 
ideas of poetry, and of the mission of the poet, from 
those that had been rendered popular by the critics ; 
and arguing from the fact of their residing in the 
same region, it was rumoured that " a new school 
of poetry 5 ' was forming, and the " Lake School" 
became a popular phrase, that was caught up, and 
passed current from lip to lip without examination. 
In truth, except in their reverence for virtue, and 
for natural and revealed religion, no minds could 
be more dissimilar and distinct from each other 
than those three, so frequently classed together as 
the " Lakists." Wordsworth's was the triumph 
of contemplative goodness ; Coleridge'3 of lofty 
imagination, clothed in quaint, graceful, sweetly 
involved melodies. " His language," said a critic, 

B B 2 



372 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" is the very music of thought." While Southey, 
as if tired of measures that other poets had tried, 
sought new combinations of rhythm and stanza, 
and put his strong and noble thoughts in verse, 
whose cadence, pauses, and terminations were 
unlike all other English poetry. " Thalaba," 
" the wild and wondrous tale," is a unique spe- 
cimen. But original and majestic as this and 
other efforts were, — his English hexameters for in- 
stance, — most readers prefer his muse when he 
condescended to ordinary measures. Some of his 
shorter poems are not only admirable as poems, 
but contain a deep meaning, that appeals to the 
conscience of the reader. 

It was idle to speak of these distinguished and 
distinct writers en masse. They had little in 
common but the woods and hills, the lakes and 
valleys. This dissimilarity is rendered more ap- 
parent, if indeed any testimony but their own 
writings were needed, by the accounts recently 
given in the Life of Wordsworth of his inter- 
course with his poetic friends and neighbours. 
Wordsworth's readings of some South Sea voy- 
ages, and his conversations thereon with Coleridge, 
suggested the idea of the "Ancient Mariner" to 
the latter. They agreed at first to write the 
poem conjointly ; but before many lines had been 
composed it became apparent to each, particularly 
Wordsworth, that the different character of their 



COLERIDGE. 373 

minds forbade a partnership in literary labour. It 
was surely better for both and for the world that 
they each separately and freely wrought out their 
own idea. Coleridge has left us some poems of 
perfect loveliness. A distinguished poet and 
critic* says of him, " Of pure poetry, strictly so 
called, that is to say, consisting of nothing but its 
essential self, without conventional and perishing 
helps, he w x as the greatest master of his time." 
The following exquisite poem, though by no 
means his best, is best adapted for quotation. 
The reader will remark the delightful and musical 
repetitions, as if the poet lingered enchanted on 
certain words, and wove and interwove them to 
prolong the flowing melody. 

LOVE. 

" All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
Are all but ministers of Love, 
And feed his sacred flame. 

41 Oft in my waking dreams do I 
Live o'er again that happy hour, 
When midway on the mount I lay, 
Beside the ruin'd tower. 

" The moolight stealing o'er the scene, 
Had blended with the lights of eve ; 
And she was there, my hope, my joy, 
My own dear Genevieve ! 

* Leigh Hunt. 
b b 3 



374 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

" She leant against the armed man, 
The statue of the armed knight ; 
She stood and listened to my lay, 
Amid the lingering light. 

" Few sorrows hath she of her own, 
My hope, my joy, my Genevieve ! 
She loves me best whene'er I sing 
The songs that make her grieve. 

" I play'd a soft and doleful air, 
I sang an old and moving story - — 
An old rude song, that suited well 
That ruin wild and hoary. 

" She listened with a flitting blush, 
With downcast eyes and modest grace, 
For well she knew I could not choose 
But gaze upon her face. 

" I told her of the knight that wore 
Upon his shield a burning brand ; 
And that for ten long years he woo'd 
The lady of the land. 

" I told her how he pin'd, and— ah ! 
The deep, the low, the pleading tone 
With which I sang another's love, 
Interpreted my own. 

" She listened with a flitting blush, 
With downcast eyes and modest grace, 
And she forgave me, that I gaz'd 
Too fondly on her face ! 



COLERIDGE. 375 

" But when I told the cruel scorn 
That craz'd that bold and lovely knight, 
And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, 
Nor rested day nor night ; 

" That sometimes from the savage den, 
And sometimes from the darkest shade, 
And sometimes, starting up at once 
In green and sunny glade, 

" There came and look'd him in the face, 
An angel beautiful and bright ; 
And that he knew it was a fiend, 
This miserable knight ! 

" And that unknowing what he did, 
He leap'd amid a murderous band, 
And sav'd from outrage worse than death 
The lady of the land! 

" And how she wept and claspt his knees, 
And how she tended him in vain — 
And ever strove to expiate 
The scorn that craz'd his brain ; 

" And that she nurs'd him in a cave ; 
And how his madness went away, 
When on the yellow forest leaves 
A dying man he lay ; — 

" His dying words — but when I reach'd 
That tenderest strain of all the ditty, 
My faltering voice and pausing harp 
Disturb'd her soul with pity. 
B b 4 



376 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, 

" All impulses of soul and sense 
Had thrill' d my guileless Genevieve ; 
The music and the doleful tale, 
The rich and balmy eve ; 

" And hopes, and fears that kindle hope. 
An undistinguishable throng, 
And gentle wishes long subdu'd, 
Subdu'd and cherish' d long. 

" She wept with pity and delight, 
She blush' d with love and virgin shame ; 
And like the murmur of a dream, 
I heard her breathe my name. 

" Her bosom heav'd* — she stept aside, 
As conscious of my look she stept — 
Then suddenly, with timorous eye, 
She fled to me and wept. 

M She half enclos'd me in her arms, 
She press'd me with a meek embrace ; 
And bending back her head, look'd up, 
And gaz'd upon my face. 

" 'Twas partly love and partly fear, 
And partly 'twas a bashful art, 
That I might rather feel than see 
The swelling of her heart. 

" I calm'd her fears, and she was calm, 
And told her love with virgin pride ; 
And so I won my Genevieve, 
My own, my beauteous bride." 



LORD BYRON. 377 

Southey's "Complaints of the Poor" is a spe- 
cimen of the deep purpose that dwelt even in his 
short lyrics. There are, however, not a few 
enlightened readers who prefer his noble prose 
to his poetic efforts. 

The critics, who made themselves merry or 
angry over these poets, — who discussed " The 
Lake School," as they called it, and talked of the 
outraged dignity of the Muse, finding or fancying 
false theories that were to pervert or subvert our 
noble English verse, and what was of more im- 
portance, our wholesome English poetry, were 
not, however, more indulgent to a writer of an 
entirely different kind; equally as original and 
distinct, and far more immediately popular and 
influential than the Lake poets — Lord Byron. 

Wordsworth's sentiment, that a poet's life is 
written in his poems, is as true of Byron as of 
himself. As mortal man cannot choose his destiny, 
it is a strange injustice that blames and punishes 
a man for his misfortunes of birth, parentage, 
education, and social position. Poverty and low- 
liness has usually been the appointed discipline of 
the poet; Byron was fated to different but not 
less severe trials. 

Descended from parents whose passions were 
wild and strong as a tornado — reared by a mother 
who fostered all she should have checked in her 
son, and outraged all she should have encouraged 



378 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

— the beautiful, imaginative, sensitive, crippled 
boy, grew up an embodiment of the passions. 
Good and evil were ever wrestling with, and, like 
the demons of old time, rending him. Early 

" Lord of himself, that heritage of woe," 

he sent forth the poetic fancies of his youth under 
a somewhat unhappy title, " Hours of Idleness," 
to the public : unhappy, because the idea sug- 
gested by such a title is, that the writer, supposing 
others to be as idle as himself, means to bestow 
his tediousness upon them. This bagatelle, giving 
but little evidence of the great powers latent in 
the writer, was severely criticised according to the 
then prevailing style of scarifying fledgling poets. 
But Lord Byron was not of a temper to submit 
quietly to the discipline, or die of it, as gentler 
spirits did. It roused him : 

" His soul sprang up astonished ! full statur'd in an hour." 

He hurled defiance at the critics ; and his satire, 
"English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," startled 
society by a revival of all the point, brilliancy, and 
personality of Pope, combined with a passionate 
scorn, all Byron's own. From this time he had an 
audience listening earnestly for his utterances. He 
had rank, fashion, beauty ; but happiness, the heart- 
wealth, he had not, perhaps never could have, with 
his peculiar idiosyncrasy and principles. Life 



LORD BYRON. 379 

with him was never a healthy contemplative calm ; 
it was a fitful fever. He was self-centred in an 
unusual degree. His personal sorrows, wrongs, 
opinions, passions, his sufferings and his sins, were 
all interwoven in his poetry. His distinctness, 
condensation, command of language and imagery, 
flexibility, and fluency, were obvious ; while his 
appeals to the passions made him an immediate- 
favourite with the young and the romantic. His 
sarcasm and misanthropy equally commended him 
to the large class of the discontented and oppressed. 
" Childe Harold, a Pilgrimage," is not only the 
most finished, but the most faultless of his many 
wonderful poems, Rarely has it happened that a 
work has been so sustained and powerful that 
was written and published with an interval of 
three years between the two first and two last 
cantos. Its descriptions are so just, that they rise 
to the lip of every traveller that wanders through 
the region traversed by the Pilgrim, — a person- 
age, by the way, that society could not help con- 
founding with the Author. The philosophy, where 
it fails to convince, as it often must, stimulates the 
mind to inquiry, from its powerful demands on 
the intellect of the reader. No one ever read that 
poem with a real attention, without receiving 
mental profit. Byron's writings benefit the brain ; 
they rarely improve the heart. His own heart 
was ill at ease ; and something of its restlessness, 



380 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

its vague yearning, its unsatisfied throbbing, is 
communicated to the reader- 
Byron was opposed to the new measures of 
verse, as well as to the new themes of poetry chosen 
by his before-named gifted contemporaries. He 
formed his style (except in the " Childe Harold," 
which is in the Spenserian stanza) much on the 
model of Pope, and usually adhered to established 
forms of versification; though, had his sense of 
the laws of composition permitted him to attempt 
novelty, it is fair to infer no one would have 
excelled him, for our language in his hands was 
flexible as the Italian. 

Lord Byron's literary reputation has suffered 
not only from his personal circumstances, but from 
the faults and follies of his servile imitators. His 
great popularity, with the young more particularly 
— his temperament of mingled scorn and melan- 
choly, perfectly natural to him, only too real in 
his case — created a morbid taste among his ad- 
mirers: and, for a time, nothing was poetic but 
discontent and sorrow. It might be said of him, 
as he has finely said of Satan, — 

" Where lie gaz'd, a gloom pervaded space." 
The gloom, however, has cleared off, and men in 
warm sunlight read the poems of the master, and 
think no more of the follies of the pupils, except 
to rejoice that as they had not his genius, so they 
were exempt from his sorrows. 



LORD BYKON. 381 

" Poor, proud Byron ! sad as grave, 
And salt as life ! forlornly brave, 
And quivering with the dart he drave," — 

is a just description of one whose griefs were so 
real, that even his laughter dies into a sob, and 
his passionate fire is quenched in tears. How 
could a man be otherwise than wretched who 
believed in such men and such women as his 
poetry presented? — creatures at once so mighty 
and so mean, so proud and yet so weak, so ex- 
acting yet so unyielding, so sinful yet so severe, 
so fond and so false, so beautiful and so deceptive. 

Lord Byron did not die in absolute youth, but 
he died before middle age had calmed his passions 
and matured his judgment,* His poetry took in 
a range of about twenty-one years, from the age 
of sixteen to thirty-seven. That it influenced 
and yet will influence the mind of the age — that 
it has a fixed and high place in English literature 
— no one can doubt who either remembers, reads, 
or reflects on the mental aspects of the time. 

The habit of comparing Lord Byron with 
Wordsworth, making one the standard by which 
to judge the other, is as illogical as unjust; all 
pertaining to them, personally and relatively, was 
essentially different. What the thoughtful mind 
has to note is the fact, that great as are the di- 

* Lord Byron died 1824, aged 37. 



382 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

versities of matter, those of mind are yet greater ; 
and that the world is instructed, not by sameness, 
but variety. 

Sir Walter Scott, who with Lord Byron is the 
most prominent personage in the literary tableau 
of the age, was well described as " a healthy man." 
There was a moral and mental symmetry, a pro- 
portion and equipoise, manifested equally in his 
poetic and prose writings. There was neither 
too much of the active nor the contemplative, just 
enough of the one to benefit the other. He fed 
his imagination at pure sources — the old English 
poets ; and without any philosophising on the 
matter, he went back to the olden time for sub- 
jects, and presented them so picturesquely, that 
all admired the descriptive power, quite as much 
as the easy tripping music of his pleasant verse. 
His works are so universally known and read, 
that comment is unnecessary, and quotation su- 
perfluous. 

Campbell is the last of our great modern poets 
who adhered, in the structure of his verse, to the 
model of Pope, and who sedulously aimed at a 
perfect polish and correctness according to the rules 
of eighteenth-century criticism. His " Pleasures 
of Hope," his " Gertrude of Wyoming," and even 
yet more his noble lyrics, rank with the very 
finest productions of the age. Those who knew 
him best testified that his fault was a tendency to 



CAMPBELL. 383 

touch and retouch, to peruse and alter, until he 
injured rather than improved. He sometimes 
corrected into tameness. The noble line in 
" Hohenlinden," 

" Far flashed the red artillery," 

was with difficulty saved from his altering, and 
ofttimes injuring process. 

While this tendency might have been in his 
case carried to excess, it was honourable to the 
poet. The facilities for publication in the present 
age are so numerous, that writers are tempted to 
be on too familiar terms with the public, and to 
give readers, through the press, slipshod, careless 
utterances, that would scarcely do for the post- 
office. To emulate Campbell's genius would be 
an impossibility ; to imitate his example in this 
respect would often be an advantage to both 
writers and readers. 

There never was a time when our poetic litera- 
ture abounded more in orientalisms than during 
the first twenty-five years of the present century. 
Eastern manners, morals, mind, and life were 
constantly described. Lord Byron did not alone 
aid in the formation and spread of this taste. His 
gifted friend and biographer, Thomas Moore, con- 
tributed his share in the composition of Eastern 
tales, full of all the gorgeous splendour and re- 
dundant luxury of the region they described. In 



384 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

fluency and ease, perfect finish, luxuriance, and 
happy turns of expression, no poet of his time 
surpassed Moore. His own genial nature made 
him too often mistake pleasure for the business 
of the poet, and his exuberant fancy heaped up 
sweets until the reader was ready to exclaim, in 
his own words, 

" There's a beauty for ever unchangingly bright, 
Like the long sunny lapse of a summer day's light, 
Shining on — shining on, by no shadow made tender, 
Till love falls asleep in that sameness of splendour." 

Yet, notwithstanding this luxurious, superfluous 
affluence of sweets, whenever patriotism and ten- 
derness need words, some of Moore's stanzas will 
rise to the lips as most appropriate, expressive, 
and affecting. 



LITERATURE OF THE PEOPLE. 385 



CHAP. XX. 

LITERATURE AMONG THE PEOPLE. — POETS AND PROSE 

WRITERS OF THE POOR. ASPECTS OF LITERATURE IN THE 

PRESENT TIME. LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS. THOUGHTS 

ON READING. 

There has been a great deal both of insolence 
and vulgarity displayed in the wonder expressed 
when a man in humble life has contributed to the 
treasures of our literature. Many, in reading the 
poems of Burns, were constantly thinking rather 
of the ploughman than the poet ; and instead of 
feeling additional reverence for one who had known 
the sterner discipline of life, and manfully endured 
it, a stupid wonder that such thoughts should have 
visited a peasant has been the uppermost feeling ; 
forgetting that the thoughts would have been as 
rare and beautiful if they had visited a prince. 
The words "republic of letters," though a fre- 
quent phrase on the lip, is not so intelligible, it 
seems, to the mind. If that phrase were believed 
as embodying a fact, there would be less wonder 
and more reverence in studying the literature 
contributed by men and women of the people. 

A reading public has led, as a tolerably neces- 
sary consequence, to a writing public — and, for 
C C 



386 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

the most part, to an earnest, vigorous writing 
public. 

That great minds should arise among those 
who are termed " the people," is no new thing in 
literature, Shakspeare's name is a patent of 
nobility for his low-born brethren, greater far 
than Herald's College can hunt up, or ratify. 
Every age supplies a comment to the speech of 
prejudice, " Can any good thing come out of 
Nazareth?" if people will only "come and see." 

It must be owned, however, that prior to the 
present time, in most cases when remarkable 
natural gifts were bestowed on a man, they did 
not always aid him to feel that the ties of brother- 
hood with the people were knit the stronger. He 
felt himself " with them but not of them ; " and 
claiming kindred not only with higher natures, 
as was his right, but with the more fortunate 
in the social scale, he forgot, as well as left, his 
lowly brethren. Thus it happens, that though 
one of the leading critics, as well as one of the 
most truthful poets, of the end of the last and 
beginning of the present century, — William Gif- 
ford (long editor of the Quarterly) and George 
Crabbe, were by birth among the humblest of the 
humble ; yet the social position they attained so 
ignored or shrouded their origin, that we rarely 
hear them quoted among the gifted sons of the 
people. The great Tory critic in his editorial 



ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 387 

chair, the quiet clergyman in his priestly robe, 
became incorporated with upper if not better 
classes ; and the former especially had little sym- 
pathy with the section of society from which he 
sprung. 

There have been fully as great men as these 
w T ho have ennobled rather than left the ranks of 
the people. Not to dwell on Burns, — who, as he 
affectingly says, "was a poor man by birth and 
an exciseman by necessity," — we have had in 
South Britain many eminent writers, " poor men 
by birth." Such was Robert Bloomfield, whose 
" Farmer's Boy," " Rural Tales," and " Mayday 
with the Muses," are full of hearty appreciation of 
the beautiful and the good, and whose verse has 
an elegance that sufficiently attests he was in the 
best sense one of nature's gentlemen. Far higher 
in the ranks of genius, though quite as lowly 
born, we must place Ebenezer Elliott — a soul 
of fire ! claiming kindred with Burns in power 
and pathos. It has been objected to the bard of 
Sheffield that he selected political themes, — the 
Corn Laws and their consequences, — and that 
such themes never can be poetic. It must, how- 
ever, be remembered, that poetry dwells like fire 
in the flint, and does not flash out till rightly 
smitten forth. Ebenezer Elliott was terribly in 
earnest ; the wrongs and sorrows of the toil-worn 
operative were his own wrongs and sorrows. His 

c c 2 



388 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

voice, awful in its distinctness, uttered the wail 
and curse of thousands. He did not speak in 
vain. 

His poems on more general themes are equally 
powerful, and for many readers more interesting. 
What can be finer as a description of mountain 
scenery and a sudden storm than 

WIN-HILL. 

" King of the Peak ! Win-Hill ! thou, thron'd and crown'd, 

That reign'st o'er many a stream and many a vale ! 
Star-loved, and meteor-sought, and tempest-found ! 

Proud centre of a mountain-circle, hail ! 

The might of man may triumph or may fail ; 
But, Eldest Brother of the Air and Light, 

Firm shalt thou stand when demigods turn pale ! 
For thou, ere Science dawn'd on Keason's night, 
Wast, and wilt be, when Mind shall rule all other might. 

" But, crown'd Win-Hill ! to be a king like thee ! 

Older than death ! as God's thy calm behest ! 
Only heaven-rivalled in thy royalty ! 

Calling the feeble to thy sheltering breast, 

And shaking beauty from thy gorgeous vest, 
And lov'd by every good and happy thing ! 

With nought beneath thee that thou hast not bless'd, 
And nought above thee but the Almighty's wing ! 
O glorious god-like aim ! Who would not be a king ? 

******* 

" c Blow, blow, thou breeze of mountain freshness blow ! T 
Stronger and fresher still, as we ascend 



EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 389 

Strengthen' d and freshen'd, till the land below 
Lies like a map ! — On ! on ! those clouds portend 
Hail, rain, and fire ! — Hark, how the rivers send 

Their skyward voices hither, and their words 
Of liquid music ! — See, how bluely blend 

The east moors with the sky ! — The lowing herds, 

To us, are silent now, and hush'd the songful birds. 



" High on the topmost jewel of thy crown, 

Win- Hill! I sit bareheaded, ankle-deep 
In tufts of rose-cupp'd bilberries ; and look down 

On towns that smoke below, and homes that creep 

Into the silvery clouds, which far-off keep 
Their sultry state ! and many a mountain stream, 

And many a mountain vale, ; and ridgy steep ; ' 
The Peak, and all his mountains, where they gleam 
Or frown, remote or near, more distant than they seem ! 

u There flows the Ashop, yonder bounds the Wye, 

And Derwent here towards princely Chatsworth tends ; 
But, while the ISTough steals purple from the sky, 

Lo ! northward far, what giant's shadow bends ? 

A voice of torrents, hark ! its wailing sends ; 
Who drives yon tortured cloud through stone-still air ? 

A rush ! a roar ! a wing ! a whirlwind rends 
The stooping larch ! The moorlands cry ; Prepare ! 
It comes ! ye gore-gorg'd foes of want and toil, beware ! ' 



" Storm ! could I ride on thee, and grasp thy mane, 
A bitless bridle, in my unburnt hand ; 
Like flax consum'd, should fall the bondman's chain, 
Like dust, the torturers of each troubled land ; 
And Poland o'er the prostrate Hun should stand — 



390 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

Her foot upon his neck, her falchion's hilt 

Beneath her ample palm. Then every strand 
Should hear her voice : ' Our bulwark is rebuilt, 
Europe ! but who shall gauge the blood these butchers 
spilt ? ' 



" Thy voice is like thy Father's, dreadful storm ! 

Earth hears his whisper, when thy clouds are torn ; 
And Nature's tremour bids our sister-worm 

Sink in the ground. But they who laugh to scorn 

The trampled heart which want and toil have worn, 
Fear thee, and laugh at Him, whose warning word 

Speaks from thy clouds, on burning billows borne ; 
For, in their hearts, his voice they never heard, 
Ne'er felt his chastening hand, nor pin'd with hope de- 
ferr'd. 

" O Thou whose whispering is the thunder ! Power 

Eternal, world-attended, yet alone ! 
O give, at least, to labour's hopeless hour 

That peace, which Thou deny'st not to a stone ! 

The famine- smitten millions cease to groan ; 
When wilt Thou hear their mute and long despair ? 

Lord, help the poor ! for they are all thy own. 
Wilt Thou not help ? did I not hear Thee swear 
That Thou would'st tame the proud, and grant their 
victim's prayer ?" 

Another distinguished son of the people, well 
described by Ebenezer Elliott, as 

" Gentle Nature's stern prose bard, 
The noblest peasant born," 

was William Cobbett. What a life was his! 



WILLIAM COBBETT. 391 

Born at Farnham, in Surrey, 1766, of humble, in- 
dustrious parents, he was successively a plough- 
boy, a hop-ground labourer, a copying clerk, a 
soldier, a teacher; then an author, a farmer, a 
member of parliament.* His "Political Register, 55 
apart from its peculiar principles, is a valuable 
record of events during nearly thirty-three years 
of the present century. Public men and measures 
are there canvassed in a manner at once graphic 
and unscrupulous. 

To the general reader his miscellaneous writings 
are the most interesting. Few prose works of 
description can compare, and none surpass, his 
"Rural Rides," written in a clear, unincum- 
bered style, without a superfluous word, and yet 
always so grouping the scenes he describes that they 
make a picture for the reader. The very absence 
of ornament gives an air of freshness to his descrip- 
tions. They are like a green field, on which the 
eye is never weary of looking. His " Advice to 
Young Men " contains some admirable counsels as 
to personal habits in the outset of life. It deals, 
as, indeed, might be expected, from the plain, prac- 
tical character of the author's mind, rather with 
the outer than the inner life ; yet, when it is re- 
membered how much an honourable and happy 
life must depend on attention to the practical de- 

* He represented Oldham, in Lancashire, in the Reformed 
Parliament, till his death, 1835. 



392 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

tails of minor morals, the admonitions of one so 
competent to write from experience are of high 
value. 

A self-taught man, he particularly excelled in 
a clear, sound, grammatical knowledge of his own 
and of the French language. His grammars, 
English and French, addressed to, or designed for, 
those who are engaged in the work of self-culture, 
are admitted to be of great practical utility. Ex- 
tensively known as they are, they would be far 
more widely read if they did not so abound in 
political allusions. Politics were as the breath of 
life to Cobbett; he could not cease from them, 
whatever he did: they furnish illustrations for 
his grammars, point the moral of his admonitions, 
and supply the humorous or pathetic touches of 
his rural pictures. 

Cobbett's " Register" was among the first of 
the cheap publications of the age. " Twopenny 
Trash" it was called contemptuously by his 
enemies. The stamp tax, however, put an end 
to the " twopenny trash," though not to the " Re- 
gister." 

The example of such men as we have named 
could not fail to give an impetus to the mind 
of the people at large. Literature means, perhaps, 
"Republic of letters" more in our age than at 
any previous time. 

The judgment of an age upon itself is too much 



PRESENT ASPECTS OF LITERATURE. 393 

like individual self-judgment to be relied on. Its 
fault is likely to be an over or under estimate, 
and not a just appreciation. Indeed, an age, like 
an oil painting, must be viewed from a distance to 
be justly estimated. Hence it is puzzling to a 
young reader, and not easy, indeed, to a reader of 
any age, to reconcile the different estimates that 
have appeared of the literary character of the 
present age ; because, by some it has been spoken 
of as manifesting an activity and progress un- 
paralleled ; by others it has been charged with want 
of originality, and with extent of surface rather 
than depth. 

Certain it is, if we look carefully, every age 
has its peculiar distinctive features ; but we are 
too close to discern fully the effect of those of our 
own time. There are some points, however, in 
which it may fairly be said to differ from every 
other age. There is an intense life in the whole 
" body of the time." Society has a vitality and 
rapidity about it, to which no former period 
furnishes any parallel. If life is to be measured by 
actions, the term of life is now greatly lengthened. 
The right to think, though long conceded as a 
theory, was never so generally adopted as a prac- 
tice as in the present time. This right has been 
used in reference both to metaphysical and physical 
investigation. Scientific triumphs have had much 
to do in originating and keeping up the activity 



394 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

of the age. Time was, that a man's reputation 
for intellect depended mainly on his knowledge of 
the dialects and customs of obsolete nations. Now, 
a ready faculty of observation and construction 
has served to raise many a man to eminence, and 
to make him a benefactor to his kind. The manu- 
factures, the locomotion, and the general habits of 
society, have altered more in the last fifty years 
than in any three centuries previously. Con- 
veniences of life, that would have excited the 
gratitude and wonder of monarchs in old times, 
are now so familiar they fail to attract notice. 
The dreams of the poets as to the swiftness and 
the transformations of supernatural beings, have 
been excelled by the actual triumphs of the steam- 
engine, and the applications of electricity and of 
light. Never was there an age in which the 
conquest of mind over matter was so manifest. 
We harness fire as our steed, send a message to 
our friends with the rapidity of lightning, and 
make the sun itself our portrait-painter. 

"Do we work our souls as nobly as our iron?" 
Does this triumph over matter help to guide mind 
to highest truth? — are questions more easily put 
than answered. The office of all knowledge is to 
contribute to true wisdom. If we, as a people, 
are more knowing than our ancestors, it is a ter- 
rible condemnation if we are not the wiser for our 
knowledge. 



PRESENT ASPECTS OF LITERATURE. 395 

The aspects of literature must help us to con- 
sider our present position. 

A casual glance at the last century certainly 
helps us to a belief that the present age is far more 
independent in matters of thought. There is as 
much difference of opinion on various topics as 
there ever was,, but it is manifested with less acri- 
mony. The language of controversy is not less 
strong, though it is now certainly more courteous. 
No one man, however great, in the present day, 
could rule the realms of literature and taste with 
such despotism as Dr. Johnson exhibited. Indeed, 
the most marked change that has taken place in 
the history of mind in the present age is the de- 
termination of writers to be untrammelled by the 
laws of opinion or of composition laid down by 
the critics of the last century. What may be 
termed the conventionalisms of literature have been 
broken down. We have seen that Southey, 
Coleridge, and Wordsworth, departing from es- 
tablished rules of composition, gave to the public, 
early in the present century, poems in unusual 
and sometimes new measures, and defended their 
plan by reference to truth and nature, the two 
great teachers of the poet. They each resolved 
to write as they were prompted, and not on the 
models established by Dryden and Pope, and 
praised by Addison and Johnson. Wordsworth, 
in particular, held that communion with God, 



396 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

nature, and his own soul, was the true consecra- 
tion and mission of the poet ; and that it mattered 
not how humble the subjects of poetry were, if 
they ministered to just and gentle thoughts. Thus, 
a serene quietude, a luminous stillness, pervades 
his poems. They require a meditative perusal; 
and therefore have seldom been such favourites 
with the young as with the mature and aged 
reader. These three poets certainly had the merit, 
apart from the excellence and beauty of their 
own compositions, of arousing inquiry as to the 
nature of poetry in the abstract; and a greater 
capability of feeling and judging of poetry has, in 
consequence, been infused into the general reader. 

Sir Walter Scott, the greatest name in imagi- 
native literature, did not, like the three before- 
mentioned poets, either invent new measures or 
select unusual themes. He went back to the 
olden time, and invested the chivalrous stories of 
the fifteenth and sixteenth with the refinement 
and grace of the nineteenth century. The old 
ballad, and the metrical legend, in irregular but 
most musical verse, were restored to a place in 
our modern literature ; while a taste for the old 
poets themselves was revived, when it was seen 
how charming and picturesque were the modern 
antiques presented by a man who was as ardent 
an antiquarian as poet. 

Miss Edgeworth has the honour of having sug- 
gested to Sir Walter Scott the idea of presenting 



PRESENT ASPECTS OF LITERATURE. 397 

some prose fictions illustrative of national cha- 
racter. Her racy descriptions of Irish life and 
manners induced him to write something descrip- 
tive of Scottish character ; and, taking history as 
a general basis, he reared many a superstructure 
of great beauty upon it. The young reader, how- 
ever, should always bear in mind, that Sir Walter 
Scott would not be tied down in his historical 
stories to the actual chronology of history, and 
therefore introduced characters into some scenes 
that were dead before the event he described. 
He wrote to elucidate history by descriptions of 
costume, manners, and conversation — not to su- 
persede it by an accurate narrative of events. 

The success of these works of Sir Walter Scott 
was marked by two effects on our general litera- 
ture. The old, foolish, gossiping stories, tasteless 
and dull as they were improbable, went entirely 
out of fashion : people could no longer read 
merely for a story, they required something more 
intellectual ; so the silly absurdities of the " Mi- 
nerva Press" class of novels ceased. The second 
effect was, that numbers of writers who previously 
would have thought it degrading to compose 
novels, now that this department of literature 
was raised, turned their attention to it, and for 
a long time " fiction," to use the comparison of a 
celebrated female writer, was "the Aaron's rod 
of literature, swallowing up all the rest." 



398 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The controversy caused by the different theory 
of poetry, from that of the Lakists, supposed to be 
held by the three eminently great and popular poets, 
Byron, Campbell, and Moore, could not fail to be 
beneficial ; for if it did no more than lead people 
to the sentiment expressed by Klopstock, in a 
conversation with Wordsworth, " that there are 
different subjects for poetry, and that poets are 
not willing to be restricted in their choice," it 
helped to enlarge the mind, and to teach the first 
principles of criticism. Perhaps the three poets 
named may be regarded as having more than any 
others of their time adhered, in outward form, to 
the polished ease and correctness of Pope. But 
the spirit of their writings is all their own. 

The age has been peculiarly rich in humorists ; 
and it is to the credit of the morals and manners 
of the time that humour never before was so free 
from all that offends the delicate and sensitive mind. 
Graceful pleasantry, playful wit, racy humour, 
unmixed with levity, bitterness, or coarseness, 
may be regarded as a characteristic of the age. 
There can be no doubt that women, now forming 
so large a part of the reading public, has had an 
influence in restraining the licence which wits in 
former periods allowed themselves. A brilliant 
essayist*, referring to Congreve and the other 

* Macaulay. 



PRESENT ASPECTS OF LITERATURE. 399 

writers of English comedy, alleges, that one rea- 
son of their coarseness was, that women were 
so seldom readers that men never wrote in ex- 
pectation of addressing them. It is fair, there- 
fore, to conclude, that the improvement in re- 
ference to the humorous writers of the present 
age is due to the mental influence of women. 
It is but just to admit that the wit of modern 
times is too often a mere play on words, and con- 
sists of grotesque forms of expression, cant and 
class terms, and bad spelling. 

During the previous century many infidel writers 
arose, both in England and France ; and, as with 
overweening vanity they complimented themselves 
on their originality and freedom from prejudice, 
several persons, young men more particularly, 
thought that infidelity was a proof of great intel- 
lectual powers ; so that, from sheer vanity rather 
than conviction, many were self-deluded into a 
gloomy soul-destroying scepticism. To meet this 
evil, several religious writers of high intelligence 
arose, who presented the truths of religion in unan- 
swerable argument ; and, though it cannot be said 
that infidelity was entirely annihilated, yet the 
arrogant delusion that to be a sceptic was to be 
something intellectually superior to the Christian 
was completely overthrown. When the mighty 
minds that have given in their testimony of child- 
like reliance on the sacred truths of Scripture are 



400 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

remembered, it is marvellous that any such vain 
boast should have ever for a moment been in- 
dulged by any mind. 

Religious investigation has formed a consider- 
able part of the intellectual activity of the age. 
The grounds of belief have been carefully ex- 
amined, and an intelligent carrying out of the 
Apostle's injunction, "Be able to give a reason 
of the hope that is in you," has been more 
diligently attended to than at any previous time. 
It would, indeed, be shameful if this were not the 
case, for there never was a period when so many 
aids to the study of divine truth were within the 
reach of the humblest student. It is to be hoped 
that the conviction which enlightened minds must 
feel, that while there is such diversity of mind 
there cannot be uniformity of conviction or opinion, 
has the effect of producing greater liberality of 
thought and catholicity of spirit. 

A demand for earnestness rather than polish, 
for vigour rather than beauty, in the literature of 
the present time, has had a good effect in directing 
the mind of readers more to matter than to 
manner. Style is not disregarded, but the truth 
is more than ever manifest, that the thought of a 
sentence is its gem ; the words, however beautiful 
and appropriate, are merely the setting. To think 
right thoughts, therefore, is now considered far 
more essential than to write fine phrases. An 



LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS. 401 

epigram no longer serves instead of an argument, 
and a polished lie for a homely truth. 

While of course it is possible to enumerate our 
poets and leading minds, yet the numbers of admi- 
rable writers in every department of literature is 
now so great, that any thing like critical analysis, 
however rapid, is beyond the range of a work like 
this. A reading public makes a demand so vast 
and continuous, that it has caused a supply un- 
precedented. The press of our time is as great 
a marvel as the railroad or the electric telegraph. 

One cause that has contributed to this appetite 
for information has been the establishment of popu- 
lar associated institutions, town libraries, reading 
and book societies for literary intercourse and im- 
provement. In all former times institutions of a 
literary or scientific character were meant for the 
very few, not for the many. Even public libraries 
were restricted as much in their readers as in 
their contents. The diffusive form that intelli- 
gence assumed, when periodical literature became 
established in the land, was favourable to the rise 
and progress of collateral and associated plans for 
diffusing knowledge. Literary and scientific in- 
stitutions, intended for the educated classes, but 
without the restrictions adopted by learned so- 
cieties, began to prevail early in the present 
century. To these were added, in process of 
time, Mechanics' Institutions. Dr. Birkbeck, who 






402 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

founded one in Glasgow (1800)> finding it worked 
well, determined, in 1824, to establish a similar 
institution in London, and, aided by Lord Broug- 
ham and others, succeeded. This plan was imi- 
tated throughout the kingdom, until now in most 
towns, and even in many villages, there are 
associations of a similar character, or at all events 
libraries and book societies. Never was the prin- 
ciple of association more excellently employed, as 
to secular things, than in thus enabling all classes 
to partake in the benefits of knowledge. It is 
true these institutions have not accomplished all 
they designed for the class they more especially 
hoped to benefit, but that very great good has 
been done no one can deny. And what they 
have effected for a class whose preliminary edu- 
cation fitted them to enjoy the benefits afforded, 
certainly points to the conclusion that elementary 
instruction of the poorest should be promoted. 

The circumstance that our literature is now so ex- 
tensively contributed to by female writer^ has done 
much to increase the educational opportunities of 
women generally, and to stimulate a desire for 
knowledge, and a sense of the duty of self-culture. 
While the duties of women, as to the demands of 
domestic life, are the same as ever, and are neither 
to be neglected nor superseded, it has been found 
that a well-stored mind does not unfit for those 
duties, but gives a higher idea of their importance ; 



THOUGHTS ON READING. 403 

and therefore many old prejudices that condemned 
women to ignorance have passed away. They 
are generally admitted to the privileges of popular 
institutions for the diffusion of knowledge, on 
equal or even more favourable terms than persons 
of the opposite sex. So that now it has certainly 
come to pass that knowledge is free to all, at 
least as to acquisition. 

The danger now is that these privileges will be 
neglected or misused. Young people roam in 
libraries and read at every opportunity ; but they 
too often neglect all system in their reading, and 
therefore are not much the wiser after all. No 
person could in print, without a charge of ob- 
trusive invidiousness, point out the authors it 
would be well for young persons to read carefully 
and systematically ; but the departments of know- 
ledge on which information should be gained 
might be easily referred to. Theology, morals, 
science, history, biography, travels, occasionally 
enlivened by the highest and loveliest efforts of the 
imagination, would comprise a plan of reading 
that could not fail to store the mind with correct 
principles and general knowledge. 

It is a good rule whenever a sterling book of 
established reputation is begun, to go right through 
with it. Cursory, snip-snap reading is the vice 
of this rapid, hurrying age. A good appetite 
without a good digestion would soon bring the 



404 SKETCHES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

physical system into disorder ; and it is so ex- 
tensively with the mind. We are, perhaps, 
gratified by that which we only taste, but we are 
nourished only by that which we digest. 

We should never lose sight of the object 
we have in view in our reading — improvement. 
We may seek this object in many different ways, 
as taste and opportunity direct, but we must, if 
we are just to ourselves, never fail to seek it. 
"What am I the better for having read this 
book?" should be as frequent a question as 
" Am I pleased with it?" What has it told me 
that I did not know before? what thought has 
it suggested? what virtue has it strengthened?, 
what fault corrected ? Those who read with this 
self-examining spirit must read to profit. 

The pages here brought to a close have not only 
attempted to trace the course of the stream of 
literature, but have aimed at guiding the reader, 
the young reader especially, to its deep still 
waters, and its green and flowery banks. No one 
looking on a guide-book, would be careless of the 
places it described ; but would use it as an indicator 
of what, but for it, might not have been noted, 
or have been passed over with transitory interest. 

THE END. 



London : 

Spottiswoodes and Shaw, 

New -street- Square. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS #] 



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